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23  WEST  MAIN  STREET 

WEBSTER,  N.Y.  14S80 

(716)  872-4503 


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CIHM/ICMH 

Microfiche 

Series. 


CIHM/ICMH 
Collection  de 
microfiches. 


Canadian  Institute  for  Historical  Microreproductions  /  Institut  Canadian  de  microreproductions  historiques 


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Technical  and  Bibliographic  Notas/Notaa  tachniquaa  at  bibliographiquaa 


The  Institute  has  attempted  to  obtain  the  best 
original  copy  available  for  filming.  Features  of  this 
copy  which  may  be  bibliographically  unique, 
which  mey  alter  any  of  the  images  in  the 
reproduction,  or  which  may  significantly  change 
the  usual  method  of  filming,  are  checked  below. 


□    Coloured  covers/ 
Couverture  da  couleur 


I — I    Covers  damaged/ 


D 


D 
D 
D 

n 


m 


Couverture  endommagie 


Covers  restored  and/or  laminated/ 
Couverture  restaurie  et/ou  pelliculAe 


I      I    Cover  title  missing/ 


Le  titre  de  couverture  manque 


□    Coloured  maps/ 
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Bound  with  other  material/ 
ReliA  avec  d'autres  documents 

Tight  binding  may  cause  shadows  or  distortion 
alonv  interior  margin/ 

La  re  liure  serr6e  peut  causer  de  I'ombre  ou  de  la 
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mais,  lorsque  cela  itait  possible,  ces  pages  n'ont 
pas  Ati  filmAes. 


L'Institut  a  microfilm^  le  meilleur  exempiaire 
qu'il  lui  a  iti  possible  de  se  procurer.  Les  details 
de  cet  exempiaire  qui  sont  peut-Atre  uniques  du 
point  de  vue  bibliographique,  qui  peuvent  modifier 
une  image  reproduite,  ou  qui  peuvent  exiger  une 
modification  dans  la  m^thode  normale  de  filmage 
sont  indiquis  ci-dessous. 


I      I    Coloured  pages/ 


0 
D 
0 
D 


D 


Pages  de  couleur 

Pages  damaged/ 
Pages  endommagtes 

Pages  restored  and/or  laminated/ 
Pages  restaurdes  et/ou  pelliculdes 

Pages  discoloured,  stained  or  foxed/ 
Pages  dicolor^es,  tacheties  ou  piquies 

Pages  detached/ 
Pages  ditach^es 


aShowthrough/ 
Transparence 


Transparence 

Quality  of  print  varies/ 
Qualiti  inigale  de  {'impression 

Includes  supplementary  material/ 
Comprend  du  materiel  suppl^mentaire 

Only  edition  available/ 
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obtenir  la  meilleure  image  possible. 


Additional  comments:/ 
Commentaires  suppldmentaires; 


Paget  XI  and  XII  are  missing  (v.1). 


This  item  is  filmed  at  the  reduction  ratio  checked  below/ 

Ce  document  est  filmd  au  taux  de  r6duction  indiquA  ci-dessous. 


10X 

14X 

18X 

22X 

26X 

30X 

J 

12X 

16X 

• 

20X 

24X 

28X 

32X 

Th«  copy  filmed  h«r*  has  b««n  reproduced  thanke 
to  the  generocity  of: 

MacOdrum  Library 
Cariaton  Univariity 


L'exemplaire  fiimA  fut  reproduit  grice  i  la 
gAnArositA  de: 

MacOdrum  Library 
Carleton  University 


The  imagea  appearing  here  are  the  beat  quality 
poaalbia  conaidering  the  condition  and  legibility 
of  the  original  copy  and  in  keeping  with  the 
filming  contract  apeciflcationa. 


Original  coplea  in  printed  paper  covera  are  filmed 
beginning  with  the  front  cover  and  ending  on 
the  iaat  page  with  a  printed  or  illuatrated  imprea- 
sion,  or  the  back  cover  when  appropriate.  All 
other  original  copiea  are  filmed  beginning  on  the 
first  page  with  a  printed  or  illustrated  imprea- 
sion.  and  ending  on  the  Iaat  page  with  a  printed 
or  iiiustrsted  impression. 


The  last  recorded  frame  on  each  microfiche 
shall  contain  the  symbol  — ^>  (meaning  "CON- 
TiNUEO").  or  the  symbol  V  (meaning  "END"), 
whichever  applies. 

IVIapa,  plates,  charts,  etc.,  may  be  filmed  at 
different  reduction  ratioa.  Those  too  large  to  be 
entirely  included  in  one  exposure  are  filmed 
beginning  in  the  upper  left  hand  corner,  left  to 
right  and  top  to  bottom,  aa  many  framea  aa 
required.  The  following  diagrams  illuatrate  the 
method: 


Lea  imagea  suivantea  ont  4t«  reproduites  avec  le 
plua  grand  aoln,  compta  tenu  de  la  condition  at 
de  la  nettet*  de  l'exemplaire  fiimA,  et  en 
conformity  avec  lea  conditions  du  contrat  de 
fllmage. 

Lea  exemplalres  originaux  dont  ia  couverture  en 
papier  eat  imprim6e  sont  filmte  en  commen^ant 
par  le  premier  plat  et  en  terminant  soit  par  la 
dernlAre  page  qui  comporte  une  empreinte 
d'impression  ou  d'illustration,  soit  par  le  second 
plat,  salon  le  cas.  Tous  lee  autres  sxempiaires 
originaux  sont  filmte  en  commen^ant  par  ia 
premiere  page  qui  comporte  une  empreinte 
d'impression  ou  d'illustration  et  en  terminant  par 
la  dernlAre  page  qui  comporte  une  telle 
empreinte. 

Un  dea  symboies  suivants  apparaftra  sur  la 
dernlAre  image  de  cheque  microfiche,  seion  le 
caa:  le  symbols  -♦•  signifie  "A  SUiVRE",  le 
symbols  V  signifie  "FIN". 

Lee  cartes,  planches,  tableaux,  etc..  peuvent  dtre 
fllmte  ii  dee  taux  de  rMuction  diffArents. 
Lorsque  le  document  est  trop  grand  pour  dtre 
reproduit  en  un  seul  clichA,  11  est  filmA  d  partir 
de  I'angle  supArieur  gauche,  de  gauche  d  droite, 
et  de  haut  en  baa,  en  prenant  le  nombre 
d'images  nteessaire.  Lea  diagrammes  suivants 
illustrent  la  m^thode. 


1  2  3 

4  5  6 


V( 


PRIMITIVE  CULTURE. 


VOL.  I. 


I.  '. 


x\ 


K£S£l 


HORACE   HART,   PRINTER   TO   THE   UNIVERSITY 


'( 

il  n< 


PRIMITIVE  CULTURE:. 


RESEARCHES  INTO  THE  DEVELOPMEiNT  OF  MYTHOLOGY,  PHILOSOPHY, 
KELIGION,  LANGUAGE,  ART,  AND  CUSTOM. 

BY         /    '     • 

EDWARD  B.  TYLOR,  D.C.L.,  LL.D.,  F.R.S., 

READER  IN  ASTHKoPOLOGY  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  OXFORD, 
AUTHOR  OP  '  RESEARCHES  INTO  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND,'  ETC. 


'Cti  n'flst  pas  dans  lea  iwsiilbilitdB,  c'eut  dans  rhomiue  nieiiie  qu'il  faut  tJtudier  rhomine: 
il  nu  a'agit  i>as  d'iningintir  cu  iiu'il  auroit  \A  uu  dQ  faire,  iiiaiu  de  regarder  ue  qu'il  fait.' 

— De  Brosses. 

IN    TWO    VOLUMES. 
VOL.  I. 

THIRD    EDITION,    REVISED. 


LONDON : 
JOHN   MURRAY,   ALBEMARLE   STREET. 

1891 

IRighU  c/ Translation  and  Reproduction  raervedl 


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Reli| 


PREFACE    TO   THE    FIRST   EDITION. 


The  present  volumes,  uniform  with  the  previous 
volume  of  *  Researches  into  the  Early  History  of 
Mankind'  (Ist  Ed.  1865;  2nd  Ed.  1870),  carry  on 
the  investigation  of  Culture  into  other  branches  of 
thought  and  belief,  art  and  custom.  During  the 
past  six  years,  I  have  taken  occasion  to  bring 
tentatively  before  the  public  some  of  the  principal 
points  of  new  evidence  and  argument  here  advanced. 
The  doctrine  of  survival  in  culture,  the  bearing  of 
directly-expressive  language  and  the  invention  of 
numerals  on  the  problem  of  early  civilization,  the 
place  of  myth  in  the  primitive  history  of  the  human 
mind,  the  development  of  the  animistic  philosophy 
of  religion,  and  the  origin  c ''  rites  and  ceremonies, 
have  been  discussed  in  various  papers  and  lectures,* 
before  being  treated  at  large  and  with  a  fuller  array 
of  facts  in  this  work. 

'  Fortnightly  Review  :  '  Origin  of  Language,'  April  15,  1866  ;  '  Re- 
ligion of  Savages,'  August  15,  1866.  Lectures  at  Royal  Institution ; 
'  Traces  of  the  Early  Mental  Condition  of  Man,'  March  15,  1867 ;  '  Sur- 
vival of  Savage  Thought  in  Modern  Civilization,'  April  23,  1869. 
Lecture  at  University  College,  London  :  '  Spiritualistic  Philosophy  of 
the  Lower  Races  of  Mankind,'  May  8,  1869.  Paper  read  at  British 
Association,  Nottingham,  1866 ;  '  Phenomena  of  Civilization  Traceable 
to  a  Rudimental  Origin  among  Savage  Tribes.'  Paper  read  at 
Ethnological  Society  of  London,  April  26,  1870 :  '  Philosophy  of 
Religion  among  the  Lower  Races  of  Mankind,'  &c.,  &c. 
VOL.  I.  a  3 


VI 


PHKFACK. 


The  authorities  for  tlie  f'actH  stated  in  the  text 
are  fully  specified  in  the  foot-notes,  which  must  also 
serve  as  my  general  acknowledgment  of  obligations 
to  writers  on  ethnography  and  kindred  sciences,  as 
well  as  to  historians,  travellers,  and  missionaries.  I 
will  only  mention  ajjart  two  treatises  of  whicli  I 
have  mfide  especial  use :  the  '  Mensch  in  der  Ge- 
schichte,'  by  Professor  Bastian  of  Berlin,  and  the 
'  Anthropologie  der  Naturvolker,'  by  the  late  Pro- 
fessor Waitz  of  Marburg. 

In  discussing  problems  so  complex  as  those  of  the 
development  of  civilization,  it  is  not  enough  to  put 
forward  theories  accompanied  by  a  few  illustrative 
examples.  The  statement  of  the  facts  must  form 
the  staple  of  the  argument,  and  the  limit  of  needful 
detail  is  only  reached  when  each  group  so  displays 
its  general  law,  that  fresh  cases  come  to  range 
themselves  in  their  proper  niches  as  new  instances 
of  an  already  established  rule.  Should  it  seem  to 
any  readers  that  my  attempt  to  reach  this  limit 
sometimes  leads  to  the  heaping  up  of  too  cumbrous 
detail,  I  would  point  out  that  the  theoretical  novelty 
as  well  as  the  practical  importance  of  many  of  the 
issues  raised,  make  it  most  unadvisable  to  stint 
them  of  their  full  evidence.  In  the  course  of  ten 
years  chiefly  spent  in  these  researches,  it  has  been 
my  constant  task  to  select  the  most  instructive 
ethnological  facts  from  the  vast  mass  on  record,  and 
by  lopping  away  unnecessary  matter  to  reduce  the 
data  on  each  problem  to  what  is  indispensable  for 
reasonable  proof. 

E.  B.  T. 

^for(^h,  1871. 


'  ill  the  text 
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J  sciences,  as 
ssionaries.     I 
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i8 


PREFACJE   TO   THE   SECOND    EDITION. 


B.  T. 


Since  the  publication  of  this  work  in  1871, 
translations  have  appeared  in  German  and  Russian. 
In  the  present  edition,  the  form  of  page  has  been 
slightly  altered,  for  convenience  of  re-issue  at  once 
in  England  and  America.  The  matter,  however, 
remains  substantially  the  same.  A  few  passages 
have  been  amplified  or  altered  for  greater  clearness, 
and  on  some  points  additional  or  improved  evidence 
has  been  put  in.  Among  the  anthropologists  whoso 
published  reviews  or  private  communications  have 
enabled  me  to  correct  or  strengthen  various  points, 
I  will  only  mention  by  name  Professor  Felix  Lie- 
brecht,  of  Liege,  Mr.  Clements  R.  Markham,  Pro- 
fessor Calderwood,  Mr.  Ralston,  and  Mr.  Sebastian 
Evans. 

It  may  have  struck  some  readers  as  an  omission, 
that  in  a  work  on  civilization  insisting  so  strenuously 
on  a  theory  of  development  or  evolution,  mention 
should  scarcely  have  been  made  of  Mr.  Darwin  and 
iVlr.  Herbert  Spencer,  whose  influence  on  the  whole 
course  of  modern  thought  on  such  subjects  should 
not  be  left  without  formal  recognition.  This  ab- 
sence of  particular  reference  is  accounted  for  by  the 
present  work,  arranged  on  its  own  lines,  coming 
scarcely  into  contact  of  detail  with  the  previous 
works  of  these  eminent  philosophers. 

An  objection  made  by  several  critics  as  to  the 
accumulation  of  evidence  in  these  volumes  leads  me 


I 
I 


viii 


PREFACE. 


to  remark,  with  .siiicero  gmtiHcatioii,  that  this  ob- 
jection has  in  fact  been  balanced  by  solid  advantage. 
The  plan  of  collecting  wide  and  minute  evidence, 
so  that  readers  may  have  actually  before  them  the 
means  of  judging  the  theory  put  forward,  has  been 
justified  by  the  reception  of  the  book,  even  in  circles 
to  whose  views  many  of  its  arguments  are  strongly 
adverse,  and  that  in  matters  of  the  first  importance. 
Writers  of  most  various  philosophical  and  theological 
schools  now  admit  that  the  ethnological  facts  are 
real,  and  vital,  and  have  to  be  accounted  for.  It  is 
not  too  much  to  say  that  a  perceptible  movement 
of  public  opinion  has  here  justified  the  belief  that 
the  English  mind,  not  readily  swayed  by  rhetoric, 
moves  freely  under  the  pressure  of  facts. 

E.  B.  T. 

September,  1873. 


PREFACE    TO   THE   THIRD    EDITION. 


In  this  edition,  while  I  have  not  found  it  needful 
to  alter  the  general  argument,  the  new  information 
which  has  become  available  during  the  last  twenty 
years  has  made  it  necessary  to  insert  further  details 
of  evidence,  and  to  correct  some  few  statements. 
For  convenience  of  reference,  the  paging  of  the 
last  edition  is  kept  to. 

E.  B.  T. 

September,  1891. 


CONTENTS 


or 


THE    FIRST    VOLUME. 


CHAPTER  I. 


\  Cultv 


THE  SCIENCE  OF  CULTURE, 


PAGE 


rurc  or  Civilization — Its  phenomena  related  according  to  definite 
Laws  — Method  of  classification  and  discussion  of  the  evidence — 
Connexion  of  successive  stages  of  culture  by  Permanence,  Modi- 
fication, and  Survival — Principal  topics  examined  in  the  present 
work 


CHAPTER  II. 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  CULTURE. 

Stages  of  culture,  industrial,  intellectual,  political,  moral — Develop- 
ment of  culture  in  great  measure  corresponds  with  transition 
from  savage  through  barbaric  to  civilized  life — Progression-theory 
— Degeneration-theory — Development-theory  includes  both,  the 
one  as  primary,  the  other  as  secondary — Historical  and  tradi- 
tional evidence  not  available  as  to  low  stages  of  culture— Histo- 
rical evidence  as  to  principles  of  Degeneration — Ethnological 
evidence  as  to  rise  and  fall  in  culture,  from  comparison  of  dif- 
ferent levels  of  culture  in  branches  of  the  same  race— Extent 
of  historically  recorded  antiquity  of  civilization — Prehistoric 
Archaeology  extends  the  antiquity  of  man  in  low  stages  of  civili- 
zation— Traces  of  Stone  Age,  corroborated  by  megalithio  struc- 
tures, lake-dwellings,  shell-heaps,  burial-places,  &o,,  prove  ori- 
ginal low  culture  throughout  the  world— Stages  of  Progressive 
Development  in  industrial  arts 26 


V 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  III. 
SURVIVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


PAGE 


Surviyal  and  Superstition— Children's  games — Games  of  chance— 
Traditional  sayings — Nursery  poems— Proverbs — Riddles— Signi- 
ficance and  survival  in  Customs  :  sneezing-formula,  rito  of  foun- 
dation-sacrifice, prejudice  against  saving  a  drowning  man   .        .     70 

CHAPTER  IV. 

SURVIVAL  IN  CULTURE  {continued). 

Occult  Sciences— Magical  powers  attributed  by  higher  to  lower  races 
— Magical  processes  based  on  Association  of  Ideas— Omens — 
Augury,  &c. — Oneiromancy — Haruspication,  Scapulimancy,  Chi- 
romancy, &c. — Cartomancy,  &c. — Rhabdomancy,  Dactyliomancy, 
Coscinomancy,  &c. — Astrology — Intellectual  conditions  account- 
ing for  the  persistence  of  Magic — Survival  passes  into  Revival — 
Witchcraft,  originating  in  savage  culture,  continues  in  barbaric 
civilization ;  its  decline  in  early  mediaeval  Europe  followed  by 
revival ;  its  practices  and  counter-practices  belong  to  earlier 
culture— Spiritualism  has  its  source  in  early  stages  of  culture,  in 
close  connexion  with  witchcraft  —  Sf ''••'-rapping  and  Spirit- 
writing— Rising  in  the  air— Performa;  i  of  tied  mediums — 
Practical  bearing  of  the  study  of  Survival 112 

CHAPTER  V. 

EMOTIONAL  AND  IMITATIVE  LANGUAGE, 

Element  of  directly  expressive  Sound  in  Language — Test  by  indepen- 
dent correspondence  in  distinct  languages  —Constituent  processes 
of  Language — Gesture — Expression  of  feature,  &c. — Emotional 
Tone — Articulate  sounds,  vowels  determined  by  musical  quality 
and  pitch,  consonants — Emphasis  and  Accent— Phrase-melody, 
Recitative  —  Sound-Words— Interjections — Calls  to  Animals — 
Emotional  Cries — Sense-Words  formed  from  Interjections — Affir- 
mative and  Negative  particles,  &c. 160 

CHAPTER  VI. 

EMOTIONAL  AND  IMITATIVE  LANGUAGE  (continued). 

Imitative  Words — Human  actions  named  from  sound — Animals' 
names  from  cries,  &c. — Musical  Instruments— Sounds  reproduced 
— Words  modified  to  adapt  sound  to  sense — Reduplication — Gra- 
duation of  vowels  to  express  distance  and  difference — Children's 
Language— Sound-words  as  related  to  Sense-words — Language  an 
original  product  of  the  lower  Culture     ...,        =        .  200 


; 


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V 

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PAGE 


Mice— 

Signi- 
foun- 


70 


r  races 
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Y,  Chi- 
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icount- 
rival — 
irbaric 
red  by 
earlier 
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Spirit- 
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112 


lepen- 
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lody, 
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Affir- 


160 


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imals' 
duced 
Gra- 
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ge  an 


200 


C\v 


vi  (i  STi 


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D  t  <p 


PRIMITIVE   CULTURE. 


CHAPTER  I. 


THE   SCIENCE  OF  CULTURE . 


Culture  or  Civilization — Its  phenomena  related  according  to  definite  Laws 
— Method  of  classification  and  discussion  of  the  evidence — Connexion 
of  successive  stages  of  culture  by  Permanence,  Modification,  and 
Survival — Principal  topics  examined  in  the  present  work. 

C  Culture  or  Civilization,  taken  in  its  wide  ethnographic 
sense,  is  that  complex  whole  which  includes  knowledge,  be- 
lief, art,  morals,  law,  custom,  and  any  other  capabilities  and 
habits  acquired  by  man  as  a  member  of  society]  The  con- 
dition of  culture  among  the  various  societies  of  mankind,  in 
so  far  as  it  is  capable  of  being  investigated  on  general 
principles,  is  a  subject  apt  for  the  study  of  laws  of  human 
thought  and  action.  On  the  one  hand,  the  uniformity 
which  so  largely  pervades  civilization  may  be  ascribed,  in 
great  measure,  to  the  uniform  action  of  uniform  causes ; 
while  on  the  other  hand  its  various  grades  may  be  regarded 
as  stages  of  development  or  evolution,  each  the  outcome  of 
previous  history,  and  about  to  do  its  proper  part  in  shaping 
the  history  of  the  future.  To  the  investigation  of  these  two 
great  principles  in  several  departments  of  ethnography,  with 
especial  consideration  of  the  civilization  of  the  lower  tribes 
as  related  to  the  civilization  of  the  higher  nations,  the  pre- 


'OiumeH  are  aevotect. 


vol.  l 


B 


THE  SCIENCE   OF  CULTURE. 


Our  modern  investigators  in  the  sciences  of  inorganic 
nature  are  foremost  to  recognize,  both  within  and  without 
their  special  fields  of  work,  the  unity  of  nature,  the  fixity  of 
its  laws,  the  definite  sequence  of  cause  and  effect  through 
which  every  fact  depends  on  what  has  gone  before  it,  and 
acts  upon  what  is  to  come  after  it.  They  grasp  firmly  the 
Pythagorean  doctrine  of  pervading  order  in  the  universal 
Kosmos.  They  affirm,  with  Aristotle,  that  nature  is  not 
full  of  incoherent  episodes,  like  a  bad  tragedy.  They  agree 
with  Leibnitz  in  what  he  calls  'my  axiom,  that  nature 
never  acts  by  leaps  (la  nature  n'agit  jamais  par  saut),'  as 
well  as  in  his  'great  principle,  commonly  little  employed, 
that  nothing  happens  without  its  sufficient  reason.'  Nor, 
again,  in  studying  the  structure  and  habits  of  plants  and 
animals,  or  in  investigating  the  lower  functions  even  of  man, 
are  these  leading  ideas  unacknowledged.  But  when  we 
come  to  talk  of  the  higher  processes  of  human  feeling  and 
action,  of  thought  and  language,  knowledge  and  art,  a 
change  appears  in  the  prevalent  tone  of  opinion.  The 
world  at  large  is  scarcely  prepared  to  accept  the  general 
study  of  human  life  as  a  branch  of  natural  science,  and  to 
carry  out,  in  a  large  sense,  the  poet's  injunction  to  '  Ac- 
count for  moral  as  for  natural  things.'  To  many  educated 
minds  there  seems  something  presumptuous  and  repulsive 
in  the  view  that  the  history  of  mankind  is  part  and  parcel 
of  the  history  of  nature,  caat  our  thoughts,  wills,  and  actions 
accord  with  laws  as  definite  as  those  which  govern  the 
motion  of  waves,  the  combination  of  acids  and  bases,  and 
the  growth  of  plants  and  animals. 

The  main  reasons  of  this  state  of  the  popular  judgment 
are  not  far  to  seek.  There  are  many  who  would  willingly 
accept  a  science  of  history  if  placed  before  them  with  sub- 
stantial definiteness  of  principle  and  evidence,  but  who  not 
unreasonably  reject  the  systems  offered  to  them,  as  falling 
too  far  short  of  a  scientific  standard.  Through  resistance 
such  as  this,  real  knowledge  always  sooner  or  later  makes 
its  way,  while  the  habit  of  opposition  to  novelty  does  such 


organic 
without 
Sxity  of 
through 
3  it,  and 
mly  the 
niversal 
e  is  not 
ey  agree 
i  nature 
laut),'  as 
nployed, 
I.'    Nor, 
ants  and 
L  of  man, 
vhen  we 
iling  and 
xd  art,  a 
m.     The 
J  general 

and  to 
to 'Ac-    \ 
educated 
repulsive 
id  parcel 

actions 
vern  the 
ases,  and    y 

udgment 
willingly 
rith  sub- 
who  not 
,s  falling 
esistance 
r  makes 
loes  such 


THE  SCIENCE  OP  CULTURE. 


8 


excellent  service  against  the  invasions  of  speculative  dog- 
matism, that  we  may  sometimes  even  wish  it  were  stronger 
than  it  is.     But  other  obstacles  tojthe  myestjgation  pfjaws 
of  human  nature  arise  from  considerations  of  metaphysics 
and  theology.     The  popular  notion  of  free.  Triinfln  will  in- 
volves  not  only  freedom  to  act  in  accordance  with  motive, 
but  also  a  power  of  breaking  loose  from  continuity  and_ 
acting^wit^outcause, — a  combination  which  may  be  roughly 
illustrated  by  the  simile  of  a  balance  sometimes  acting  in 
the  usual  way,  but  also  possessed  of  the  faculty  of  turning 
by  itself  without  or  against  its  weights.    This  view  of  an 
anomalous  action  of  the  will,  which  it  need  hardly  be  said  is 
incompatible  with  scientific  argument,  subsists  as  an  opinion 
patent  or  latent  in  men's  minds,  and  strongly  affecting  their 
theoretic  views  of  history,  though  it  is  not,  as  a  rule, 
brought   prominently  forward    in    systematic   reasoning. 
Indeed  the  definition  of  human  will,  as  strictly  according 
with  motive,  is  the  only  possible  scientific  basis  in  such  en- 
quiries.    Happily,  it  is  not  needful  to  add  here  yet  another 
to  the  list  of  dissertations  on  supernatural  intervention  and 
natural  causation,  on  liberty,  predestination,  and  accounta- 
bility.    We  may  hasten  to  escape  from  the  regions  of  trans- 
cendental philosophy  and  theology,  to  start  on  a  more  hope- 
ful journey  over  more  practicable  ground.     NonejgilLdeny- 
that,  as  each  man  knows  by  the  evidence  of  his  owil  con- 
sciousness,  definite  and  natural  cause  does,  to  a  great 
extent,   determine  human   action.      Then,   keeping  aside 
from  considerations  of  extra-natural  interference  and  cause- 
less spontaneity,  let  us  take  this  admitted  existence  of 
natural  cause  and  effect  as  our  standing-ground,  and  travel 
on  it  so  far  as  it  will  bear  us.     It  Is  on  this  same  basis  that 
physical    science    pursues,    with    ever-increasing    success^ 
its  quest   of  laws  of  nature.    Nor_need_tbis  restriction 
hamper  the  scientific  study  of  human  life,  in  whicli  the . 
real  difficulties  are  the  practical  ones  of  enormous  com- 
plexity  of    evidence,    and    imperfection    of    methods    of 
observation. 

B  2 


> 


THE  SCIENCE   OF  CULTURE. 


•> 


Now  it  appears  that  this  view  of  human  will  and  conduct, 
as  subject  to  definite  law,  is  indeed  recognized  and  acted 
upon  by  the  very  people  who  oppose  it  when  stated  in 
the  abstract  as  a  general  principle,  and  who  then  complain 
I      that  it  annihilates  man's  free  will,  destroys  his  sense  of  per- 

V sonal  responsibili   '.  and  degrades  him  to  a  soulless  machine. 

He  who  will  say  these  things  will  nevertheless  pass  much  of 
his  own  life  in  studying  the  motives  which  lead  to  human 
action,  seeking  to  attain  his  wishes  through  them,  framing 
in  his  mind  theories  of  personal  character,  reckoning  what 
are  likely  to  be  the  effects  of  new  combinations,  and  giving 
to  his  reasoning  the  crowning  character  of  true  scientific  en- 
(juiry,  by  taking  it  for  granted  that  in  so  far  as  his  calcula- 
tion turns  out  wrong,  either  his  evidence  must  have  been 
false  or  incomplete,  or  his  judgment  upon  it  unsound. 
C  Such  a  one  will  sum  up  the  experience  of  years  spent  in 
j  complex  relations  with  society,  by  declaring  his  persuasion 
that  there  is  a  reason  for  everything  in  life,  and  that  where 
events  look  unaccountable,  the  rule  is  to  wait  and  watch  in 
V  hope  that  the  key  to  the  problem  may  some  day  be  found. 
This  man's  observation  may  have  been  as  narrow  as  his  in- 
ferences are  crude  and  prejudiced,  but  nevertheless  he  has 
been  an  inductive  philosopher  '  more  than  forty  years  with- 
out knowing  it.'  He  has  practically  acknowledged  definite 
laws  of  human  thought  and  action,  and  has  simply  thrown 
out  of  account  in  his  own  studies  of  life  the  whole  fabric  of 
motiveless  will  and  uncaused  spontaneity.  It  is  assumed 
here  that  they  should  be  just  so  thrown  out  of  account  in 
wider  studies,  and  that  the  true  philosophy  of  history  lies 
in  extending  and  improving  the  methods  of  the  plain  people 
who  form  their  judgments  upon  facts,  and  check  them 
upon  new  facts.  Whether  the  doctrine  be  wholly  or  but 
partly  true,  it  accepts  the  very  condition  under  which  we 
search  for  new  knowledge  in  the  lessons  of  experience, 
and  in  a  word  the  whole  course  of  our  rational  life  is  based 
upon  it. 
'  One  event  is  always  the  son  of  another,  and  we  must 


THE   SCIENCE   OP  CULTURE. 


conduct, 
ad  acted 
stated  in 
jomplain 
le  of  per- 
machine. 
i  much  of 
0  human 
,  framing 
ing  what 
id  giving 
sntific  en- 
8  calcula- 
ave  been 
unsound, 
spent  in 
ersuasion 
lat  where 
watch  in 
DC  found. 
as  his  in- 
3S  he  has 
lars  with- 
d  definite 
thrown 
'abric  of 
assumed 
icount  in 
3tory  lies 
people 
ck  them 
y  or  but 
irhich  we 
perience, 
is  based 

we  must 


never  forget  the  parentage,'  was  a  remark  made  by  a 
Bechuana  chief  to  Casalis  the  African  missionary.  Thus 
at  all  times  historians,  so  far  as  they  have  aimed  at  being 
more  than  mere  chroniclers,  have  done  their  best  to  show 
not  merely  succession,  but  connexion,  among  the  events  upon 
their  record.  Moreover,  they  have  striven  to  elicit  general 
principles  of  human  action,  and  by  these  to  explain  par- 
ticular events,  stating  expressly  or  taking  tacitly  for  granted 
the  existence  of  a  philosophy  of  history.  Should  any  one 
deny  the  possibility  of  thus  establishing  historical  laws, 
the  answer  is  ready  with  which  Boswell  in  such  a  case 
turned  on  Johnson :  '  Then,  sir,  you  would  reduce  all 
history  to  no  better  than  an  almanack.'  That  nevertheless 
the  labours  of  so  many  eminent  thinkers  should  have  as  yet 
brought  history  only  to  the  threshold  of  science,  need  cause 
no  wonder  to  those  who  consider  the  bewildering  complexity 
of  the  problems  which  come  before  the  general  historian. 
The  evidence  from  which  he  is  to  draw  his  conclusions  is  at 
once  so  multifarious  and  so  doubtful,  that  a  full  and  distinct 
view  of  its  bearing  on  a  particular  question  is  hardly  to  be 
attained,  and  thus  the  temptation  becomes  all  but  irre- 
sistible to  garble  it  in  support  of  some  rough  and  ready 
theory  of  the  course  of  events.  The  philosophy  of  history 
at  large,  explaining  the  past  and  predicting  the  future  phji- 
nomena  of  man's  life  in  the  world  by  reference  to  general 
laws,  is  in  fact  a  subject  with  which,  in  the  present  state  of 
knowledge,  even  genius  aided  by  wide  research  seems  but 
hardly  able  to  cope.  Yet  there  are  departments  of  it  which, 
though  difficult  enough,  seem  comparatively  accessible.  .J[f 
the  field  of  enquiry  be  narrowed  Jroia. History-as-a-w^ole-- 
to^  that  brancb..  of  j^t  which  is  here  ^  called  Culture,  the 
history,  not  of  tribes  or  nations,  but  of  the  condition  of 
knowledge,  religion,  art,  custom,  and  the  like  among  them, 
the  task  of  investigation  proves  to  lie  within  far  more 
moderate  compass.  We  suffer  still  from  the  same  kind_oir 
difficulties  which  beset  the  wider  argument,  but  they  are 
much  diminished.    The  evidence  is  no  longer  sq  wjldly 


6 


THK  SCIENCE  OP  CULTURE. 


JxatfirfigensQuSt  but  may  be JMQre„8mipljLclafiaifiGd.andjCQmi. 

pared,  while  the  power  of^ettin^  rid  of  extraneous  matter, 
and  treating  each  issue  on  its  own  proper  set  of  fact§» 
makes  close  reasoning  on  the  whole  more  available  than  in 
general  history.  Th's  may_appear  from  a  brief  preliminary 
examination  of  the  problem^how  the  phenomenjLOt  Gulture 
may  be  classified  and  arranged,  stage  by  stage,  in  a  probable 
order  of  evolution.. 

Surveyed  in  a  broad  view,  the  character  and  habit  of, 
mankind  at  once  display  that  similarity  and  consistency  of 
phenomena. which  led  the  Italian  proverb-maker  to  declare 
that  '  all  the  world  is  one  country/  '  tutto  il  mondo  fe 
paese.'  To  general  likeness  J.n  human  nature  on  the  one 
hand,  audJ^o  general  likeness  in  the  cireumstanoe^  oLUfe-oH 
t^  other,  this  similarity  a-nd  consistency  may  no  doubt  be 
traced,  and  they  may  be  studied  with  especial  fitness  in 
comparing  races-near  the  same  grade  of  civilization.  Little 
respect  need  be  had  in  such  comparisons  for  date  in  history 
or  for  place  on  the  map ;  the  ancient  Swiss  lake-dweller  may 
be  set  beside  the  mediaeval  Aztec,  and  the  Ojibwa  of  North 
America  beside  the  Zulu  of  South  Africa.  As  Dr.  Johnson 
contemptuously  said  when  he  had  read  about  Patagonians 
and  South  Sea  Islanders  in  Hawkesworth's  Voyages,  '  one. 
set  of  savages  is  like  another.'  How  true  a  generalization 
this  really  is,  any  EiEEnological  Museum  may  show.  Examine 
for  instance  the  edged  and  pointed  instruments  in  such  a 
collection;  the  inventory  includes  hatchet,  adze,  chisel, 
knife,  saw,  scraper,  awl,  needle,  spear  and  arrow-head,  and 
of  these  most  or  all  belong  with  only  diff'erences  of  detail  to 

I  races  the  most  various.  So  it  is  with  savage  occupations ; 
the  wood-chopping,  fishing  with  net  and  line,  shooting  and 
spearing  game,  fire-making,  cooking,  twisting  cord  and 
plaiting  baskets,  repeat  themselves   with  wonderful  uni- 

/  formity  in  the  museum_8hfilvfis.  which  illustrate  the  life  of 
theTower  races  from  Kamchatka  to  Tierra  del  Fuego,  and 
from  Dahome  to  Hawaii.  Even  when  it  comes  to  comparing 
barbaxQua  hordes  with  civilized  nations,  the  consideration 


THE  SCIENCE  OF  CULTURE. 


dandijflm-. 
ous  matter, 
t  of  fact§4 
ble  than  in 
reliminary 
iilCulture 
a  probable 

d  habit  of, 
sistency  of 
'  to  declare 
mondo  ^ 
n  the  .ope 

3  doubt  be 
fitness  in 
)n.    Little 
in  history 
seller  may 
[  of  North 
Johnson 
tagonians 
iges,  *  one. 
ralization 
i^xamine 
in  such  a 
chisel, 
ead,  and 
detail  to 
ipations ; 
ting  and 
ord  and 
■ul  uni- 
e  life  of 
5go,  and 
paring 
leration 


thrusts  itself  upon  our  minds,  how  far  item  after  item  of  the 
life  of  the  lower  races  passes  into  analogous  proceedings  of 
the  higher,  in  forms  not  too  far  changed  to  be  recognized, 
and  sometimes  hardly  changed  at_alL  Look  at  the  modern 
European  peasant  using  his  hatchet  and  his  hoe,  see  his 
food  boiling  or  roasting  over  the  log-fire,  observe  the  exact 
place  which  beer  holds  in  his  calculation  of  happiness,  hear 
his  tale  of  the  ghost  in  the  nearest  haunted  house,  and  of 
the  farmer's  niece  who  was  bewitched  with  knots  in  her 
inside  till  she  fell  into  fits  and  died.  If  we  choose  out  in 
this  way  things  which  have  altered  little  in  a  long  course  of 
centuries,  we  may  draw  a  picture  where  there  shall  be  scarce 
a  hand's  breadth  difference  between  an  English  ploughman 
and  a  negro  of  Central  Africa.  These  pages^  wili^e_§i) 
crowded  with  evidence  of  such  con-espondence  among  man- 
kind,  that  there  is  ng  need  to  4well  jipon.  its  details  here, 
bufit  may  be  used  at  once_tQ.  ovftrridft  a  prQblfica,whisb 
would  complicate  the  argument,  namely,  the  question  of 
race.  Forjthe  present  purpose  it  appears  both  possible  and 
desirable  to  eliminate  considerations  of  hereditary  varietiea 
or  races  of  man,  and  to  treat  mankiiid  as  homogeiieQ.iis_in 
nature,  though  placed  in  different  grades  of  civilization. 
The  details  of  the  enquiry  will,  I  think,  prove  that  stages 
of  culture  may  be  compared  without  taking  into  account 
how  far  tribes  who  use  the  same  implement,  follow  the 
same  custom,  or  believe  the  same  myth,  may  differ  in 
their  bodily  configuration  and  thoycolour  of  their  skin 
and  hair.  T^UZJ^j^^*^ 

A  first  step  in  the  study  of  civilization  is  to  dissect  it  into 
detail^  and  to  clas8ify_^ese  in  their  proper  groups.  Thus, 
/  'in  examining  weapons,  tEey  are  to  be  classed  under  spear, 
club,  sling,  bow  and  arrow,  and  so  forth ;  among  textile  arts 
are  to  be  ranged  matting,  netting,  and  several  grades  of 
making  and  weaving  threads  ;  myths  are  divided  under  such 
headings  as  myths  of  sunrise  and  sunset,  eclipse-myths, 
earthquake-myths,  local  myths  which  account  for  the  names 
of  places  by  some  fanciful  tale,  eponymic  myths  which  account 


X 


i 


8 


THE  8CIBNCE   OP  CULTUHE. 


for  the  parentage  of  a  tribe  by  turning  its  name  into  the 
name  of  an  imaginary  ancestor  ;  under  rites  and  ceremonies 
occur  such  practices  as  the  various  kinds  of  sacrifice  to  the 
ghosts  of  the  dead  and  to  other  spiritual  beings,  the  turning 
to  the  east  in  worship,  the  purification  of  ceremonial  or 
moral  uncleanness  by  means  of  water  or  fire.  Such  are  a 
few  miscellaneous  examples  from  a  list  of  hundreds,  and 
the  ethnographer's  business  is  to  classify  such  details  with 
a  view  to  making  out  their  distribution  in  geography  and 
history,  and  the  relations  which  exist  among  them.  What 
this  task  is  like,  may  be  almost  perfectly  illustrated  by  com- 
paring these  details  of  culture  with  the  species  of  plants  and 
animals  as  studied  by  the  naturalist.  To  the  ethnographer,  / 
the  bow  and  arrow  is  a  species,  the  habit  of  flattening^ 
children's  skulls  is  a  species,  the  practice  of  reckoning/ 
numbers  by  tens  is  a  species.  The  geographical  distribu- 
tion of  these  things,  and  their  transmission  from  region  to 
region,  have  to  be  studied  as  the  naturalist  studies  the 
geography  of  his  botanical  and  zoological  species.  Just  as 
certain  plants  and  animals  are  peculiar  to  certain  districts, 
so  it  is  with  such  instruments  as  the  Australian  boomerang, 
the  Polynesian  stick-and-groove  for  fire-making,  the  tiny 
bow  and  arrow  used  as  a  lancet  or  phleme  by  tribes  about 
the  Isthmus  of  Panama,  and  in  like  manner  with  many  an 
art,  myth,  or  custom,  found  isolated  in  a  particular  field. 
Just  as  the  catalogue  of  all  the  species  of  plants  and  animals 
of  a  district  represents  its  Flora  and  Fauna,  so  thejigt-of 
all  the  items  of  the  general  life  of  a  people  represents  that 
whole  which  we  call  its  cultiu'e.  And  just  as  distant  regions 
so  often  produce  vegetables  and  animals  which  are  analogous, 
though  by  no  means  identical,  so  it  is  with  the  details  of  the 
civilization  of  their  inhabitants.  How  good  a  working 
analogy  there  really  is  between  the  diffusion  of  plants  and 
animals  and  the  diflTusion  of  civilization,  comes  well  into 
view  when  we  notice  how  far  the  same  causes  have  produced 
both  at  once.  In  district  after  district,  the  same  causes 
which  have  introduced  the  cultivated  plants  and  domesti- 


THE   SCIENCE   OF  CULTUEE. 


9 


cated  animals  of  civilization,  have  brought  in  with  them  a 
corresponding  art  and  knowledge.  The  course  of  events 
which  carried  horses  and  wheat  to  America  carried  with 
them  the  use  of  the  gun  and  the  iron  hatchet,  while  in 
return  the  old  world  received  not  only  maize,  potatoes, 
and  turkeys,  but  the  habit  of  tobacco-smoking  and  the 
sailor's  hammock. 

It  is  a  matter  worthy  of  consideration,  that  the.accounts 
of  similar  phenomena  of  culture,  recurring  in  different  parts 
of  the  woi'ld,  actually  supply Jacideiital^roofpjrtheix_Q5H» 
authenticity^  Some  years  since,  a  question  which  brings 
out  this  point  was  put  to  me  by  a  great  historian — '  How 
can  a  statement  as  to  customs,  myths,  beliefs,  &c.,  of  a 
savage  tribe  be  treated  as  evidence  where  it  depends  on  the 
testimony  of  some  traveller  or  missionary,  who  may  be  a 
superficial  observer,  more  or  less  ignorant  of  the  native 
language,  a  careless  retailer  of  unsifted  talk,  a  man  preju- 
diced or  even  wilfully  deceitful  ? '  This  question  is,  indeed, 
one  which  every  ethnographer  ought  to  keep  clearly  and 
constantly  before  his  mind.  Of  course  he  is  bound  to  use 
his  best  judgment  as  to  the  trustworthiness  of  all  authors 
he  quotes,  and  if  possible  to  obtain  several  accounts  to 
certify  each  point  in  each  locality.  But  it  is  over  and  above 
these  measures  of  precaution,  that  the  test  of  recurrence 
comes  in.  If  two  independent  visitors  to  different  countries, 
say  a  mediaeval  Mohammedan  in  Tartary  and  a  modern 
Englishman  in  Dahome,  or  a  Jesuit  missionary  in  Brazil 
and  a  Wesleyan  in  the  Fiji  Islands,  agree  in  describing  some 
analogous  art  or  rite  or  myth  among  the  people  they  have 
visited,  it  becomes  difficult  or  impossible  to  set  down  such 
correspondence  to  accident  or  wilful  fraud.  A  story  by  a 
bushranger  in  Australia  may,  perhaps,  be  objected  to  as  a 
mistake  or  an  invention,  but  did  a  Methodist  minister  in 
Guinea  conspire  with  him  to  cheat  the  public  by  telling  the 
same  story  there  ?  The  possibility  of  intentional  or  unin- 
tentional mystification  is  often  barred  by  such  a  state  of 
things  as  that  a  similar  statement  is  made  in  two  remote 


10 


THE   SCIENCE  OP  CULTUBE. 


li' 


lands,  by  two  witnesses,  of  whom  A  lived  a  century  before 
B,  and  B  appears  never  to  have  heard  of  A.  How  distant 
are  the  countries,  how  wide  apart  the  dates,  how  different 
the  creeds  and  characters  of  the  observers,  in  the  catalogue 
of  facts  of  civilization,  needs  no  farther  showing  to  any  one 
who  will  even  glance  at  the  foot-notes  of  the  present  work. 
And  the  more  odd  the  statement,  the  less  likely  that  several 
people  in  several  places  should  have  made  it  wrongly.  This, 
being  so,  it  seems  reasonable  to  judge  that  the  statements 
are  in  the  mam  truly  given,  and  that  their  close  and  regular 
coincidence  is.  due  to  the  cropping  up  of  similar  facts  in 
various  districts  of  culture.  Now  the  most  important  facts 
of  ethnography  are  vouched  for  in  this  jgray,  Experience 
laads-tha.  student  after  a  while  to  expect  and  find  that  the 
phenomena  of  culture,  as  resulting  from  widely -acting  aimilar, 
causes,  should  recur„ags,ia..and.a^aiiLiiLihfiL3s:Qrld..  He  even 
mistrusts  isolated  statements  to  which  he  knows  of  no  parallel 
elsewhere,  and  waits  for  their  genuineness  to  be  shown  by 
corresponding  accounts  from  the  other  side  of  the  earth,  or 
the  other  end  of  history.  So  strong,  indeed,  is  this  means 
of  authentication,  that  the  ethnographer  in  his  library  may 
sometimes  presume  to  decide,  not  only  whether  a  particular 
explorer  is  a  shrewd  and  honest  observer,  but  also  whether 
what  he  reports  is  conformable  to  the  general  rules  of  civili- 
zation.   Non  quia,  sed  quid. 

TQ-  turn  ^om  the-diatiibtttion  of  jjultpure  in  different 
countries,  to  jts  diffusion  within  these  countries.  The 
'quality  of  mankind  which  tends  most  to  make  the  syste- 
matic study  of  civilization  possible,  is  that  remarkable  tacit 
consensus  or  agreement  which  so  fax  induces  whole  popula- 
tions to  unite  in  the  use  of  the  same  language,  to  follow  the 
same  religion  and  customary  law,  to  settle  down  to  the  same 
general  level  of  art  and  knowledge.  It  is  this  state  of  things 
which  makes  it  so  far  possible  to  ignore  exceptional  facts 
and  to  describe  nations  by  a  sort  of  general  average.  It  is 
this  state  of  things  which  makes  it  so  far  possible  to  represent 
immense  masses  of  details  by  a  few  typical  facts,  while,  these 


mM  1 


THE  SCIENCE  OF  CULTURE. 


11 


once  settled,  new  cases  recorded  by  new  observers  simply 
fall  into  their  places  to  prove  the  soundness  of  the  classifi- 
cation.    There  is  found  to  be  such  regularity  in  the  compo- 
sition of  aocioties  of  meu^  that  we  can  drop  individual 
differences  out  of  sight,  and  thus  can  generalize  on  the  arts 
and  opinions  of  whole  national  just  as,  when  looking  down 
upon  an  army  from  a  hill^  we  forget  the  individual  soldier, 
whom,  in  fact,  we  can  scarce  distinguish  in  the  mass,  while 
we  see  each  regiment  as  an  organized  body,  spreading  or 
concentrating,  moving  in  advance  or  in  retreat.     In  some 
branches  of  the  study  of  social  laws  it  is  now  possible  to  call 
in  the  aid  of  statistics,  and  to  set  apart  special  actions  of 
large  mixed  communities  of  men  by  means  of  taxgatherers' 
schedules,  or  the  tables  of  the  insurance-office.    Among 
modern  arguments  on  the  laws  of  human  action,  none  have 
had  a  deeper  effect  than  generalizations  such  as  those  of  M. 
Quetelet,  on  the  regularity,  not  only  of  such  matters  as 
average  stature  and  the  annual  rates  of  birth  and  death,  but 
of  the  recurrence,  year  after  year,  of  such  obscure  and 
seemingly   incalculable  products  of  national  life  as  the 
numbers  of  murders  and  suicides,  and  the  proportion  of  the 
very  weapons  -  of  larime.    Other  striking  cases  are  the  annual 
regularity  of  persons  killed  accidentally  in  the  London 
streets,  and  of  undirected  letters  dropped  into  post-office 
letter-boxes.     But  in  examining  the  culture  of  the  lower 
races,  far  from  having  at  command  the  measured  arithmetical 
facts  of  modern  statistics,  we  may  have  to  judge  of  the 
condition  of  tribes  from  the  imperfect  accounts  supplied  by 
travellers  or  missionaries,  or  even  to  reason  upon  relics  of 
prehistoric  races  of  whose  very  names  and  languages  we 
are  hopelessly  ignorant.     Now  these  may  seem  at  the  first 
glance  sadly  indefinite  and  unpromising  materials  for   a 
scientific  enquiry.     But  in  fact  they  are  neither  indefinite 
nor  unpromising,  but  give  evidence  that  is  good  and  definite, 
so  far  as  it  goes.    They  are  data  which,  for  the  distinct  way 
in  which  they  severally  denote  the  condition  of  the  tribe 
they  belong  to,  will  actually  bear  comparison  with  the 


12 


THE   SCIENCE  OF  CULTURE. 


^aiistician's  returns.  The  fact  is  that  a  stone  arrow-head, 
a  curved  club,  an  idol,  a  ;:;rave-mound  where  slaves  and 
property  have  been  buried  for  the  use  of  the  dead,  an 
account  of  a  sorcerer's  rites  in  making  rain,  a  table  of 
numerals,  the  conjugation  of  a  verb,  are  things  which  each 
express  the  state  of  a  people  as  to  one  particular  point 
of  culture,  as  truly  as  the  tabulated  numb<  c :  ui  deaths 
by  poison,  and  of  chests  of  tea  imported,  ox'^ii ;  ^  ii  ,,  diffe- 
rent way  other  partial  results  of  the  jcii  lal  life  of  a  whole 
community. 

^"^That  a  whole  nation  should  hn^i  special  dress,  special 
tools  and  weapons,  special  laws  oi  marriage  and  property, 
special  moral  and  religious  doctrines,  is  a  remarkable  fact, 
which  wo  notice  so  little  because  we  have  lived  all  our  lives 
in  the  midst  of  it.  It  is  with  such  general  qualities  of 
organized  bodies  of  men  that  ethnography  has  especially  to 
deal,  Yet,  while  generalizing  on  the  culture  of  a  tribe  or 
nation,  and  setting  aside  the  peculiarities  of  the  individuals 
composing  it  as  unimportaut  to  the  main  result,  we  must 
be  cai'eful  not  to  forget  what  makes  up  this  main  result. 
There  are  people  so  intent  on  the  separate  life  of  indi- 
viduals that  they  cannot  grasp  a  notion  of  the  action  of  a 
community  as  a  whole — such  an  observer,  incapable  of  a 
wide  view  of  society,  is  aptly  described  in  the  saying  that 
he  '  cannot  see  the  forest  for  the  trees.'  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  philosopher  may  be  so  intent  upon  his  general 
laws  of  society  as  to  neglect  the  individual  actors  of  whom 
that  society  is  made  up,  and  of  him  it  may  be  said  that 
he  cannot  see  tlu  treos  for  the  forest.  We  know  how  arts, 
customs,  and  ideai.  a)  c  v^aped  amo-ic  ourt^elves  by  the  com- 
bined actions  '  •  '■■  y  tdividuais,  of  which  actions  both 
motive  and  effect  often  come  quite  distinctly  within  our  view. 
The  history  of  an  invention,  an  opinion,  a  ceremony,  is  a 
history  of  suggestion  and  modification,  encouragement  and 
opposition,  personal  gain  and  party  prejudice,  and  the  indi- 
viduals concerned  act  each  according  to  his  own  motives, 
as  determined  by  his  character  and  circumstances.     Ihus 


THE   SOIENOK   OF  ClTLTrill 


18 


8ometirao8  wo  watch  individuals  acting  for  their  own  ends 
With  little  tliought  of  thoir  effect  on  society  at  large\  and 
Bometiinoi^  wo  have  to  study  inovementK  of  national  life 
as  a  wholi',  where  the  individuals  co-operating  in  them  are 
utterly  beyond  our  observation.  But  seeing  that  coUei  u  e 
social  action  is  the  mere  resultant  of  many  individual 
actions,  it  is  clear  that  these  two  methods  of  onijuiry,  if 
rightly  followed,  must  be  absolutely  consistent. 

In  studying  both  the  recurnmco  of  special  habits  or  ide«K 
in  several  districts,  and  their  prevalence  within  each  distrit 
there  come  before  us  ever- reiterated  proofs  of  reguli  rcausn 
tion  producing  the  phenomena  of  human  life,  and  of  lawb 
of  maintenance  and  diffusion  acfording  to  which  these  phe- 
nomena settle  into  permanent  sta  dard  conditions  of  society, 
at  definite  stages  of  culture^  Bui  while  giving  full  import- 
ance to  the  evidence  bearing  on  those  standard  conditions 
of  society,  let  us  be  careful  to  &\  oid  a  pitfall  which  may 
entrap  the  unwary  student.  Of  c  jurse  th(  opinions  and 
habits  belonging  in  common  to  mat-ses  of  mankind  are  to 
a  great  extent  the  results  of  sound  j  idgment  and  practical 
wisdom.  But  to  a  great  extent  it  i.'^  not  so.  That  many 
numerous  societies  of  men  should  have  believed  in  the 
influence  of  the  evil  eye  and  the  exist  nee  of  a  firmament, 
should  have  sacrificed  slaves  and  goods  to  the  ghosts  of  the 
departed,  should  have  handed  down  iraditions  of  giants 
slaying  monsters  and  men  turning  int(  beasts— ialLltia-is — 
gi'ound  for  holdingJbhaJLaiicbadeag^were  ndeed  pfeduced  in  ^ 
men's  minds  by  efficient  causeSj^ut-it  is  got  ground  ijor 
Holding  that  the  rites  in  c[uostion  are  pri  fitafiOiJthoJjeliefs 
sound,  and  the  history  autheBJii.<jjJ  This  may  seem  at  the 
first  glance  a  truism,  but,  in  fact,  it  is  the  ■  lenial  of  a  fallacy 
which  deeply  affects  the  minds  of  all  but  a  small  critical 
minority  of  mankind.  Popularly,  what  everybody  says 
must  be  true,  what  everybody  does  must  1  e  right — '  Quod 
ubique,  quod  semper,  qifod  ab  omnibus  cr  jditum  est,  hoc 
est  vere  proprieque  Catholicum ' — and  so  forth.  There  are. 
various  topics,  especially  in  history,  law,  philosophy,  and. 


^>^i 


X 


A    «-v 


K«:^\  (  i 


/  i   f 


>'   ^  C  /  JL 


1  I 


v\ 


0 


14 


THE  SCIENCE   OP  CULTUBE. 


theology,  where  even  the  educated  people  we  live  among 
can  hardly  be  brought  to  see  that  the  cause  why  men_do 
hold  an  opinion,  or  practise  a  customr^i  by  no  means 
nfinPiHRflri^y,  ft  y^ftfinTi  why  ihfly  ought  to  do  SO.  Now  collec- 
tions of  ethnographic  evidence,  bringing  so  prominently  into 
view  the  agreement  of  immense  multitudes  of  men  as  to 
certain  traditions,  beliefs,  and  usages,  are  peculiarly  liable 
to  be  thus  improperly  used  in  direct  defence  of  {hese  insti- 
tutionB  themselves,  even  old  barbaric  nations  being  polled 
to  maintain  their  opinions  against  what  are  called  modem 
ideas.  As  it  has  more  than  once  happened  to  myself  to 
find  my  collections  of  traditions  and  beliefs  thus  set  up  to 
prove  their  own  objective  truth,  without  proper  examination 
of  the  grounds  on  which  they  were  actually  received,  I  take 
this  occasion  of  remarking  that  the  same  line  of  argument 
will  serve  equally  well  to  demonstrate,  by  the  strong  and 
wide  consent  of  nations,  that  the  earth  is  flat,  and  night- 
mare the  visit  of  a  demon. 

It  being  shown  that  the  details  of  Culture  are  capable  of 
Jhging_clagsified  in  a  great  number  of  etEufigraphie  groups  of 
arts,  beliefs,  customs,  and  the  rest,  the  consideration  comes 
next  how  far  the  facts  arranged  in  these  groups  are  produced 
by  evolution  from  one  another.     It  need  hardly  be  pointed 
out  that  the  groups  in  question,  though  held  together  each 
by  a  common  character,  are  by  no  means  accurately  defined. 
To  take  up  again  the  natural  history  illustration,  it  may  be 
said  that  they  are  species  which  tend  to  run  widely  into 
varieties.     And  when  it  comes  to  the  question  what  relations 
veome  oF  these  groups  bear  to  others,  it  is  plain  that  the 
'(Student  of  the  habits  of  mankind  has  a  great  advantage  over 
ithe  student  of 'tte  species  of  plants  and  animals." '  Among 
maturalists  it  is  an  open  question  whether   a  theory  of 
faevelopment  from  species  to  species  is  a  record  of  transi- 
tions which  actually  took  place,  or  a  mere  ideal  scheme 
serviceable  in  the  classification  of  species  whose  origin  was 
reaUy  independent.  ^  But  among  ethnographers  there  is  no 
such  question  as  to  t^E^ossibility  of  species  of  implements 


(c 


live  among 
by  men_dp 

no  means 
!^ow  collec- 
inently  into 

men  as  to 
iiarly  liable 
{hese  insti- 
>eing  polled 
led  modem 
)  myself  to 
IS  set  up  to 
xamination 
jived,  I  take 
f  argument 
strong  and 

and  night- 

3  capable  of 
ie  groups  of 
ition  comes 
re  produced 

De  pointed 
ether  each 
ely  defined. 

it  ma}''  be 
widely  into 
at  relations 
n  that  the 
intake  over 


i 


s.' 


■  Among 
of 


theory 

of  transi- 
eal  scheme 
origin  was 
there  is  no 
rnplements 


THE   SCIENCE   OP  CULTUBE. 


15 


)1 


or  habits  or  beliefs  being  developed  one  out  of  another,  for 

development  in  culture  is  recognized  by  our  most  familiar 

knowledge.     Meehamcal  inyention  supplies  apt  examples  of 

the  kind  of  deveTdpinent  which  affects  civilization  at  large. 

In  the  history  of  fire-arms,  the  clumsy  wheel-lock,  in  which 

a  notched  steel  wheel  revolved  by  means  of  a  spring  against 

a  piece  of  pyrites  till  a  spark  caught  the  priming,  led  to  the  ' 

invention  of  the  more  serviceable  flint-lock,  of  which  a  few 

still  hang  in  the  kitchens  of  our  farm-houses,  for  the  boys 

to  shoot  small  birds  with  at  Christmas  ;  the  flint-lock  in 

time  passed  by  modification  into  the  percussion-lock,  which 

is  just  now  changing  its  old-fashioned  arrangement  to  be 

adapted    from    muzzle-loading    to    breech-loading.      The 

mediaeval  astrolabe  passed  into  the  quadrant,  now  discarded 

in  its  turn   by  the   seaman,  who  uses  the   more  delicate 

sextant,  and  so  it  is  through  the  history  of  one  art  and>'    I 

instrument  after  anotfier.    "Such~"e^amples  of  progression      ^  ^^^  "C 

are  known  to  us  as  direct  history,  but  so  thorougWjTisTlhis 

notion  of  development  at  home  in  our  minds,  that  by  means 

of  it  we  reconstruct  lost  history  without  scruple,  triistTng  to 

general  knowledge"  of  the  principles  of  human  thought  and 

action  as  a  guide  in  putting  the  facts  in  their  proper  order. 

Whether  chronicle  speaks  or  is  silent  on  the  point,  no  one   /  ^  ^ 

comparing  a  long-bow  and  a  cross-bow  would  doubt  that 

the  cross-bow  was  a  development  arising  from  the  simpler 

instrument.      So  among   the   tire-drills   for   igniting    by 

friction,  it  seems  clear  on  the  face  of  the  matter  that  the 

drill  worked  by  a  cord  or  bow  is  a  later  improvement  on  the 

clumsier  primitive  instrument  twirled  between  the  hands. 

That    instructive   class   of   specimens   which    antiquaries 

sometimes  discover,  bronze  celts   modelled  on  the  heavy 

type  of  the  stone  hatchet,  are  scarcely  explicable  except  as 

first  steps  in  the  transition   from  the   Stone  Age  to  the 

Bronze   Age,  to   be  followed  soon  by  the  next  stage   of 

progress,  in  which  it  is  discovered  that  the  new  material  is 

suited  to  a  handier  and  less  wasteful  pattern.     And  thus, 

in  the  other  branches  of  our  history,  there  will  come  again 


'Sc 


"^-'^ 


^ 


-<-^._ 


v 


16 


THE  SCIENCE   OF  CULTURE. 


and  again  into  view  aeries  of  facts  which  may  be  consis- 
tently arranged  as  having  followed  one  another  in  a 
particular  order  of  development,  but  which  will  hardly  bear 
being  turned  round  and  made  to  follow  in  reversed  order. 
Such  for  instance  are  the  facts  I  have  here  brought  forward 
in  a  chapter  on  the^Axt^of ..Qfljuating,  which  tend  to  prove 
that  as  to  IKs  point  of  culture  at  least,  savage  tribes 
reached  their  position  by  learning  and  not  by  unlearning, 
by  elevation  from  a  lower  rather  than  by  degradation  from 
a  higher  state.  """  — """'  "'     ' 

Amonglevidence  aiding  us  to  trace  the  course  which  the 
civilization  of  the  world  has  actually  followed,  is  that  great 
class  of  facts  to  denote  which  I  have  found  it  convenient 
to  introduce  the  term  'surviv;^i>  These  are  processes, 
customs,  opinions,  and  so  fortE7  which  have  been  carried  on 
by  force  of_  habit  into  a  new  stato  of  society  different  from 
that  in  which  they  had  their  original  home,  and  they  thus 
remain  as  proofs  and  examples  of  an  older  condition  of  cul- 
ure  out  of  which  a  newer  has  been  evolved.  Thus,  I  know 
an  old  Somersetshire  woman  whose  hand-loom  dates  from 
the  time  before  the  introduction  of  the  'flying  shuttle,' 
/     which  new-fangled  appliance  she  has  never  even  learnt  to 

/      use,  and  I  have  seen  her  throw  her  shuttle  from  hand  to 

)      hand   in  true   classic  fashion ;    this  old  woman   is  not  a 

(      century  behind  her  times,  but  she  is  a  case  of  survival. 

Such  examples  often  lead  us  back  to  the  habits  of  hundreds 

and  even  thousands  of  years  ago.     The  ordeal  of  the  Key 

and  Bible,  still  in  use,  is  a  survival;  the  Midsummer  bonfire 

is  a  survival ;   the  Breton  peasants'  All  Souls'  supper  for 

the  spirits  of  the  dead  is  a  survival.     The  simple^eeping 

up  of  ancient  habits  is  only  one  part  of  the  transition 

from    old   In^o^ew  and  changing  times.     The    serious 

business  of  ancient  society  may  be  seen  to  sink  into  the 

\   sport  of  later  generations,  and  its  serious  belief  to  linger 

.  )  on  in  nursery  folk-lore,  while  superseded  habits  of  old-world 
life  may  be  modified  into  new-world  forms  still  powerful  for 
good  and  evil.    Sometimes  old  thoughts  and  practices  will 


xt 


U  V 


0       [ 


\y 


^ 


d-' 


O^'  / 


r  be  consis- 
lother  in  a 
hardly  bear 
ersed  order, 
^ht  forward 
id  to  prove 
,vage  tribes 
tinlearning, 
dation  from 

e  which  the 
s  that  great 
convenient 
3  processes, 
n  carried  on 
Terent  from 
d  they  thus 
ition  of  cul- 
'hus,  I  know 
dates  from 
ng  shuttle,' 
en  learnt  to 
om  hand  to 
<n  is  not  a 
)f  survival, 
af  hundreds 
of  the  Key 
mer  bonfire 
supper  for 
pie  keeping 
transition 
'he  serious 
nk  into  the 
f  to  linger 
)f  old-world 
)owerful  for 
actices  will 


O- 


cv.. 


^^ 


O 


'b 


THE   SCIENCE   OP   CULTURE. 


uJb^ 


>J 


JL 


—r 


■31^' 


ioC--\, ' 


/  T}-— 


\7 


-  burst  out  afresh,  to  the  amazement  of  a  world  that  thouglit. 
them  longjince  dead  or  dying ;    here  suryival  passea  Joto, 
reviyajjjis  has  lately  happened  in  so  remarkable  a  way  in 
ttre^istory  of  modern,  spiritualism,  a  subject  full  of  mr_ 
struction  from  the  ethnographer's  point  of  view.     Th_e  study 
n.f\hp.  pHnn^plpft  of  Riirvival  jmgjjpdeed,  no  small  practical 
jmpOTtance,  for  most  of  what  we  call  superstition  ja.  iiii. 
eluded  within  survival,  and  in  this  wavlies  open  to  the  attack 
"of  its jjaadligst  enemy,  a  reasonable  explanation.     Insigni-  \ 
ficant,  moreover,  as  multitudes  of  the  facts  of  survival  are 
in  themselves,  their  study  is  so  effective  for  tracing  the 
course  of  the  historical  development  through  which  alone  it 
is  possible  to  understand  their  meaning,  that  it  becomes 
a  vital  point  of  ethnographic  research  to  gain  the  clearest 
)ossible  insight  into  their  nature.     This  importance  must 
justify  the  detail  here  devoted  to  an  examination  of  survival, 
on  the  evidence  of  such  games,  popular  sayings,  customs, 
superstitions,  and  the  like,  as  may  serve  well  to  bring  into 
view  the  manner  of  its  operation. 

Progress,  degradation,  survival,  revival,  modification,  jxe 

all  modes  of  the  connexion  ^^^V^ni.  hinrla  fAfirAf.Viprfhftnnmp]piy 

network  of  civilization.  It  needs  but  a  glance  lato  the 
trivial  details  of  our  own  daily  life  to  set  us  thinking  how 
far  we  are  really  its  originators,  and  how  far  but  the 
transmitters  and  modifiers'  of  the  results  of  long  past  ages. 
Looking  round  the  i*ooms  we  live  in,  we  may  try  here  how 
far  he  who  only  knows  his  own  time  can  be  capable  of 
rightly  comprehending  even  that.  Here  is  the  'honeysuckle' 
of  Assyria,  there  the  fleur-de-lis  of  Anjou,  a  cornice  with  a 
Greek  border  runs  round  the  ceiling,  the  style  of  Louis  XIV. 
and  its  parent  ^t]^  Kenaissance  share  the  looking-glass 
between  them.  [JTr^^formed,  shifted,  or  mutilated,  such 
elements  of  art  still  carry  then-  history  plainly  stamped 
upon  them  ;  and  if  the  history  yet  farther  behind  is  less  easy 
to  read,  we  are  not  to  say  that  because  we  cannot  clearly 
discern  it  there  is  therefore  no  history  there.  It  is  thus 
even  with  the  fashion  of  the  clothes  men  wear.  The 
VOL.  I.  0 


+ 


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f 


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18 


THE  SCIENCE  OF  CULTXJEE. 


'Hi  h  ! 


ridiculous  little  tails  of  the  German  postilion's  coat  show 
of  themselves  how  they  came  to  dwindle  to  such  absurd 
rudiments  ;  but  the  English  clergyman's  bands  no  longer 
so  convey  their  history  to  the  eye,  and  look  unaccountable 
enough  till  one  has  seen  the  intermediate  stages  through 
which  they  came  down  from  the  more  serviceable  wide 
collars,  such  as  Milton  wears  in  his  portrait,  and  which 
gave  their  name  to  the  '  band-box '  they  used  to  be  kept 
in.  In  fact,  the  books  of  costume,  showing  how  one 
garment  grew  or  shrank  by  gradual  stages  and  passed  into 

another,  illustrate  with  nrupph  fnrp.fi  and  nlftnmflBfl  i-he  nni.m-ft 

of  the  change  and  growth,  reviyal^and  decay,  \yhich  go  on 
from  year  to  year  in  more  imptwtaBi  «iftttw«uoiLiife,     In 
books,  again,  we  see  each  writer  not  for  and  by  himself,  but 
occupying  his  proper  place  in  history ;  we  look  through 
each  philosopher,  mathematician,  chemist,  poet,  into  the 
background  of  his  education, — through  Leibnitz  into  Des- 
cartes, through  Dalton  into  Priestley,  through  Milton  into 
Homer.     The  study  of  language  has,  perhaps,  done  more 
ythan  any  other  in  removing  from  our  view  of  human  thought 
*and  action  the  ideas  of  chance  and  arbitrary  invention,  and 
in  substituting  for  them  a  theory  of  development  by  the  \ 
co-operation  of  individual  men,  through  processes   ever 
^reasonable  and  intelligible  where  the  facts  are  fully  known. 
Rudimentary  as  the  science  of  culture  still  is,  the  symptoms 
are  becoming  very  strong  that  even  what  seem  its  most 
spontaneous  and  motiveless  phenomena  will,  nevertheless, 
be  shown  to  come  within  the  range  of  distinct  cause  and 
effect  as  certainly  as  the  facts  of  mechanics.    What  would 
be  popularly  thought  more  indefinite  and  uncontrolled  than 
the  products  of  the  imagination  in  myths  and  fables  ?     Yet 
any  systematic  investigation  of  mythology^'on  the  basis  of 
a  wide  collection  of  evidence,  will  show  plainly  enough  in 
such  efforts  of  fancy  at  once  a  development  from  stage  to 
^tagCj^  and  a  production  of  uniformity  of  result  from  uni- 
formityofca^Bfi.     Here,  as  elsewhere,  causeless  spontaneity 
is  seen  to  recede  farther  and  farther  into  shelter  within  the 


V 


ni\\ 


.  ''3^ 


<      M 


ivvA-''-^ 


a 


-Q.  fir. 


A 


D^,    1 


Cl    \ 


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c:::?^  I  '''Vv^ 


-4- 


THE  SCIENCE  OF  CULTURE. 


w 


8  coat  show 
such  absurd 
Is  no  longer 
laccountable 
ges  through 
Lceable  wide 

and  which 

to  be  kept 
ig  how  one 
passed  into 
si^jxature 
yhich  go  on 
diife.  In 
himself,  but 
ok  through 
et,  into  the 
z  into  Des- 
Milton  into 

done  more 
mn  thought 
ention,  and 
lent  by  the 
cesses  ever 
illy  known. 

symptoms 
tn  its  most 
evertheless, 

cause  and 

hat  would 
Tolled  than 
bles  ?  Yet 
he  basis  of 

enough  in 
m  stage  to 

from  uni- 
pontaneity 
within  the 


dark  precincts  of  ignorance ;  like  chance,  that  still  holds  its  •  \  ""T^ 
place  among  the  vulgar  as  a  real  cause  of  events  otherwise      ^ 
unaccountable,  while  to  educated  men  it  has  long  con-, 
sciously  meant  nottSrig  but  this 'ignorance  itself.     It  isV    "^ 
only  when  men  fail  to  see  the  line  of  connexion  in  events,  I 
that  they  are  prone  to  fall  upon  the  notions  of  arbitrary  \ 
impulses,    causeless    freaks,   chance    and    nonsense    and^j^ 
indefinite  unaccouiTtability.    If  childish  games,  purposeless 
customs,  absurd  superstitions,  are  set  down  as  spontaneous 
because  no  one  can  say  exactly  how  they  came  to  be,  the 
assertion  may  remind  us  of  the  like  effect  that  the  eccentric 
habits  of  the  wild  rice-plant  had  on  the  philosophy  of  a  ^/ 
Red  Indian  tribe,  otherwise  disposed  to  see  in  the  harmony 
of  nature  the  effects  of  one  controlling  personaiwill.     The 
Great    Spirit,  said    these    Sioux    theologians,    made    all 
things  except  the  wild  rice ;    but  the  wild  rice  came  by 
chance.^ 

'  Man,'  said  Wilhelm  von  Humboldt,  '  ever  connects 
on  from  what  lies  at  hand  (der  Mensch  kniipft  immer  an 
Vorhandenes  an).'  The^noti^ji^Qf  the  continuity  of  civili-  ^^ 
zation  contained  in  this  maxim  is  no  barren  philosophic 
principle,  but  is  at  once  made  practical  by  the  consideration 
that  they  who  wish  to  understand  their  own  lives  ought  to 
know  the  stages  through  which  their  opinions  and  habits 
have  become  what  they^re,  Auguste  Comte  scarcely  over- 
stated the~necessity  of  this  study  of  development,  when  he 
declared  at  the  beginning  of  his  '  Positive  Philosophy  '  that 
'  no  conception  can  be  understood  except  through  its 
history,'  and  his  phrase  will  bgar  extension  to__culti,^re  at 
lar^jii;  To  expect  to  look  modern  life  in  the  face  and  com- 
prehend it  by  mere  inspection,  is  a  philosophy  whose  weak- 
ness can  easily  be  tested.  Imagine  any  one  explaining  the 
trivial  saying,  '  a  little  bird  told  me,'  without  knowing  of 
the  old  belief  in  the  language  of  birds  and  beasts,  to  which 
Dr.  Dasent,  in  the  introduction  to  the  Norse  Tales,  so 
reasonably  traces  its  origin.  Attempts  to  explain  Jbyjihe. 
light  of  reason  things  which  want  the  light  ofhistory  to 

"  ,  C  2 


Tlf 


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CL- 


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A. 


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—  :>  'J 


20 


THE   SCIENCE   OP  CULTURE. 


-l: 


i<^' 

'O    .^'' 


Yn' 


ni'l 


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Q 


Ijjl 


:i'll 


show  their  meaning,  may  be  instanced  from  Blackstone's 
Commentaries.  T^Blackstone's  mind,  the  very  right  of  the 
commoner  to  turn  his  beast  ^uF  to  graze  on  the  common, 
finds  its  origin  and  explanation  in  the  feudal  system.  '  For, 
when  lords  of  manors  granted  out  parcels  of  land  to  tenants, 
for  services  either  done  or  to  be  done,  these  tenants  could 
vijaot  plough  or  manure  the  land  without  beasts ;  these  beasts 
could  not  be  sustained  without  pasture  ;  and  pasture  could 
not  be  had  but  in  the  lord's  wastes,  and  on  the  uninclosed 
fallow  grounds  of  themselves  and  the  other  tenants.  The 
law  therefore  annexed  this  right  of  common,  as  inseparably 
incident,  to  the  grant  of  the  lands ;  and  this  was  the  original 
of  common  appendant '  &c.^  Now  though  there  is  nothing 
irrational  in  this  explanation,  it  does  not  agree  at  all  with 
the  Teutonic  land-law  which  prevailed  in  England  long 
before  the  Norman  Conquest,  and  of  which  the  remains 
have  never  wholly  disappeared. j  In  the  old  village -com- 
munity even  the  araFle  land,  lying  in  the  great  common  fields 
which  may  still  be  traced  in  our  country,  had  not  yet  passed 
intQ  separate  property,  while  the  pasturage  in  the  fallows 
and  stubbles  and  on  the  waste  belonged  to  the  householders 
in  common.  Since  those  days,  the  change  Jrom  jconimunal 
to  individual  ownership  has  mostly  transformed  this  old- 
-'^orld  system,  but  the  right  which  the  peasant  enjoys  of 
pasturing  his  cattle  on  the  common  still  remains,  not  as 
a  concession  to  feudal  tenants,  but  as  possessed  by  the 
commoners  before  the  lord  ever  claimed  the  ownership  of 
the  waste.  VT^t  is  always  unsafe  to  detach  a  custom  from  its 
hold  on  past  eventiTtreating  it  as  an  isolated  fact  to  be 
sijnpl^  disposed  of  by  some  plausible  explanatio^.'^j 
r  in  carrying  on  the  great  task  of  rational  ethnography, 
the  inveiGgation  of  the  cauges  which  have  prodiiced  the 

r 

•  Blackstone,  'Commentaries  on  the  Laws  of  England,'  bk.  II.  ch.  3. 
The  above  example  replaces  that  given  in  former  editions.  Another 
example  may  be  found  in  his  explanation  of  the  origin  of  deodand,  bk.  I. 
ch.  8,  as  designed,  in  the  blind  days  of  popery,  as  an  expiation  for  the 
souls  of  such  as  were  snatched  away  by  sudden  death  ;  see  below,  p.  287. 
[Note  to  3rd  ed.] 


.^Vov^     ^ 


3   i*    -h 


THE   SCIENCE   OF  CULTURE, 


.       t 


21 


dit 
1^1 


thenomena  of  culture,  and  of^  the  laws  to  which  they  are 
subofdmale^t  ^iF^siFable  to  work  out  aa  ByBtematioftlly- 
as  possible  a  scheme  of  evolution  of  this^ulture  along  its 
jaacy  lii^es..   In  the  following  chapter,  on  the^Developmeirt 
of  Culture,   an  attempt  is  made  to  sketch  a  theoretical 
course,  of  civilization  among  mankind,  such  as  app§aia^n^ 
the  whole  most  accordant  with  the  ^yidencej,.^--^y   com- 
^  paring  the  various  stages  of  civilization  among  races  known 
to  historypwrth  the  aid  of  archaeological  inference  from  the 
remains  of  prehistoric  tribes,  it  seems  possible  to  judge  in 
a  rough  way  of  an  early  general  condition  of  man,  which 
from  our  point  of  view  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  primitive  con- 
dition, whatever  j^et^rlier  state  may  in  reality  have  lain 
behind. -^it--J  This  hypothetical  priMCive  condition  corre- 
sponds in  a  considerable  degree  to  that  of  modern  savage 
trib^  who,  in  spite  of  their  difference  and  dislaSCe^^ye. 
iircommon  certain  elements   of  civilization,  which  seem""- 
remajps  of  an.  early  state  of  the  hulmaSTrace  at  lar, 
this  hypothesis   be  true,  then,  notwithstanding  the  con 
tinual  interference  of  degeneration,  the  main  tendency  of 
culture  from  primaeval  up  to  modern  times  has  been  from 
-J-,  savagery  t6wai"ds  civiUzatioji.     On  the  problem  of  this  rela- 
'^tion  of  savage  to  civilized  life,  almost  every  one  of  the 
thousands  of  facts  digcussed  in  the  succeeding  chapters  has 
its  direct  bearing.  /Survival  in  CultureTiplacing  all  along 
the  course  of  advancing  civilization  way-marks  full  of  mean- 
ing to  those  who  can  decipher  their  signs,  even  now  sets  up 
in  our  midst  primaeval  monuments  of  barbaric  thought  and 
life.    Its  investigation  tells  strongly  in  favour  of  the  view 
,|that  the  European  may  find  among  the  Greenlanders  of 
aoris  many  a  trait  for  reconstructing  the  picture  of  his 
own  primitive  ancestors  ^j  Next  comes  thejproblem  ofthe-, 
^gin   of  Language.     T)bscur^e   as  many   par^^gL  ^^^^ 
problem  still  remain,  its  clearer  positions  lie  open  to  the 
investigation"  whether  speech  took  its  origin  among  man- 
kind in  the  savage  state,  and  the  result  of  the.  eaquiiy- 
\that,  consistently  with  all  known  evidence,  this  may  have 

—  I 


'A 


O 


r"^ 


\J^ 


o 


t^- 


22  C_r>  -^ 


<^ 


1 1' 


THE  SCIENCE   OF  OVLUVtCE. 

been  the  oasOi  i  From  the  examination  of  the  Art  of  Coimt- 

ing~aTar  more  definite  consequence  is  shown.      It  may  be 

confidently  asserted,  that  not  only  is  this  important  art 

found  in  a  rudimentary  stgAe  among  savage  tribes,  but  that 

satisfactory,  evidence  proves  numeration  to  hEve  been  de- 

velopfldjby  rational  invention  from  this  low  stage  up  to  that 

in  which  we  ourselves  "possess  it.     The  examination  of 

Mythology  contained^  in  the  first  volume,  is  for  the  most 

part  made  from  a  special  point  of  view,  on  evidence  col- 

\lected  for  a  special  purpose,  that  of  tracing  the  relation 

3etween  the  myths  of  savage  tribes  and  their  analogues 

''among  more  civilized  nations.     The  issue  of  such  enquiry 

\  goes  far  to  prove  that  the  earliest  myth-maker  arose  and 

flourished  amongNsayagfi  Vinr^j^flajaflffinpr  on  foot  an  art 

which  his  more  curfc^ed  successors  would  carry  on,  till  its 

results  came  to  be  lossilized  in  superstition,  mistaken  for 

history,  shaped  and  draped  in  poetry,  or  cast  asi^^STying 

folly. 

Nowhere,  perhaps,  are  broad  views  of  historical  develop- 
ment more  needed  than  in  the  study  of  religion.  Notwith- 
'o'  O^  standing  all  that  has  been  written  to  make  the  world 
\L.J-^^^  acquainted  with  the  lower  theologies,  the  popular  ideas  of 
their  place  in  history  and  their  relation  to  the  faiths  of 
higher  nations  are  still  of  thgjnediseval  type.  It  is  wonder- 
ful to  contrast  some  missionary  journals  with  Max  Miiller's 
Essays,  and  to  set  the  unappreciating  hatred  and  ridicule 
that  is  lavished  by  narrow  hostile  zeal  on  Brahmanism, 
Buddhism^  Zoroastrism,  beside  the  catholic  sympathy  with 
which  deep  and  wide  knowledge  can  survey  those  ancient 
and  noble  phases  of  man's  religious  consciousness ;  nor, 
because  the  religi^nsof  savqjge_Jiihe8  may  be  rud^and 
primitive  compared  wiln  the  great  Asiatic  systemsT,  do  they 
lie  too  low  for  interest  and  even  for  respectT^The  question 
really  lies  between  understanding  and  misun35T§tanding 
them,  j  Few  who  will  give  their  minds  to  master  the 
general  principles  c^sayage  religion  will  ever  again  think  it 
ridicurous,  or  the  knowledge  of  it  superfluous  to  the  rest  of 


i 


w 


'\ 


^'%-- 


r^ 


y^ 


THE  SCIENCE   OF  Ci        JRE. 


^ 


^V     / 


t  ^ 


23 


/>--■ 


V. 


mankind.  Far  from  its  beliefs  and  practices  being  a 
rubbish-heap  of  miscellaneaus  foUy,  they  are  couMsteot 
and  logical  in  so  high  a  degree  as  to  begin,  as  soon  as  even 
roughly  classified,  to  display  the  principles  of  their  forma- 
tion and  dev"(5Topmen£;and  these  principles  prove  to  be 
essentially  r^itaml,  though  working  in  a  mental  condition 
of  intense  and  inveterate  ignorance.  It  is  with  a  sense  of 
attempting  an  investigation  which  bears  very  closely  on  the 
current  theology  of  our  own  day,  that  I  have  set  myself  to 
examine  SyHttiiiiStrcally,  among  the  lower  races,  the  deve- 
lopment of^Aiilmigmr ;  that  is  to  say,  the  drnjU-ine  ofjflBJs 
and  other  ^pirtiWSi  beings  in  general.  More  than*nalf  of 
the  present  work  is  occupied  with  a  mass  of  evidence  from 
all  regions  of  the  world,  displaying  the  nature  and  meaning 
of  this  great  element  of  the  ]Philosophy  of  ReligioflX  and 
tracing  its  transmission,  expansion,  restrlutiuil,  Modifica- 
tion,  along  the  course  of  history  into  the  midst  of  our  own 
nrodern  thought.  Nor  are  the  questions  of  small  practical 
moment  which  have  to  be  raised  in  a  similar  attempt  to  • 
trace  the  development  of  certain  prominent  Rites  and  Cere-  ;  "v. 
monies— customs  so  full  of  instruction  as  to  tne  inmost 
powers  oT  religion,  whose  outward  expression  and  practical 
result  they  are.  ~^ 
'"  In  these  investigations,  however,  made  rather  from  an\      ^  jQ 

bnographic  than  a  theological  point  of  view,  there  has/  ' 
seemed  little  need  of  entering  into  direct ' cuntru'V iSisial  ^"^ 
argument,  which  indeed  I  have  taken  pains  to  avoid  as  far 
as  possible.  The  connexion  which  runs  through  religion, 
from  its  rudest  forms  up  to  the  status  of  an  enlightened 
Christianity,  may  be  conveniently  treated  of  with  little 
recourse  to  dogmatic  theology.  iTte  rites  of  sacrifice  and 
purificationTiiay  be  studied  in  their  stages  of  development 
without  "entering  into  questions  of  their  authority  and  value, 
nor  does  an  examination  of  the  successive  phases  of  the 
world's  belief  in  a  future  life  demand  a  discussion  of  the 
argUmieMs  adduced  for  or  against  the  doctrine  itself,  fihe 
ethnographic  results  may  then  be  left   as  materials  lor 


If 


>Te 


K-" 


24 


THK  SCIENCE   OP  CULTURE. 


iii 


o 


i:iii 


il|ii[ 


profeBBed  theologianB,  and  it  will  not  perhaps  bo  long  before 
evidence  bo  fraught  with  meaning  shall  take  its  legitimate 
place.  ^To  fall  back  once  again  o^he  analogy  of  natural 
history,lthe  time  may  soon  come  when  it  will  be  thought  as 
unrealBSnable  for  a  scientific  student  of  theology  not  to  have 
a  competent  acquaintance  with  tha  pi'ineipl«B  of  the  reli- 
gions  oi'  ihe  lower  racesfas  for  a  physiologist  to  look  with 
the  contempt  of  fifty  years  ago  (TtT'Cvrdence  derivecf  from 
the  lower  forms  of  life,  deeming  the  structure  of  mere 
invertebrate  creatures  matter  tliiworthy  of  his  philosophic 
study. 

Not  merely  as  a  matter  of  curious  research,  but  as  an  im- 
portant practical  guide  to  the  underatanding^g£iJia4Jrfifient 
and  the  shamng  of  the  future,  the  investigation  into  the 
"t-imn^l^^^l  ftnJy  fiftVftTnpTnftnf  of  civilizatioajiuiaLlie-pushed 
on  zealously.     Every  possible  avenue  of  knowledge  mu^t  be 
explored,  every  door  tried  to  see  if  it  is  open.    No  kind  of 
evidence  need  be  left  untouched  on  the  score  of  remoteness 
\   or  complexity,  of  minuteness  or  triviality.    The  tendency 
\  of  modern  tnquiiy  is  more  and  more  toward  the  conclusion 
\ltaiiflaw-..,3  anywhere,  it  is  everywhere.     To  despair  of 
I  what  a  conscientious  collection  and  study  of  facts  may  lead 
'to,  and  to  declare  any  problem  insoluble  because  difficult 
and  far  off,  is  distinctly  to  b^  on  the  wrong  side  in  science  ; 
and  he  who  will  choose  a  hopelesaLJtaftk  may  set  himself  to 
^    discover  the  limits  of  discovery.  jOne  remembers  Comte 
—    starting  in  his  account  of  astronomy*^vtth  a  remark  on  the 
necessary  limitation  of  ourEnowledge  of  the  stars  :  we  con- 
ceive, he  tells  us,  the  possibility  of  determining  their  form, 
distance,  size,  and  movement,  whilst  we  should  never  by 
any  method  be  able  to  study  their  chemical  composition, 
their  mineralogical  structure,  &c.  [Had  the  philosopher 
\  lived  to  see  the  application  of  spectrum  analysis  to  this 
very  problem,  his  proclamation  of  the  dispiriting  doctrine  of 
necessary  ignorance  would  perlmps  have  been  recanted  in 
favour  of  a  more  hopeful  view.  \And  it  seems  to  be  with 
the  philosophy  of  remote  humanule  somewhat  as_with  the 


THE   8C1ENCK   OP   CULTURE. 


2S 


Btutly  of  the  nature  of  the  celestial  bocliea.  The  piocesaetj 
to  be  made  out  in  the  early  stages  of  our  mental  evolution 
lie  distant  from  us  in  time  as  the  stars  lie  distant  from  us 
in  spacej  but  the  laws  of  the  universe  are  not  limited  with 
the  direct  observation  of  our  senfiCffn  There  is  vast  mate- 
rial to  be  used  in  our  enquiry;  many  workers  are  now 
busied  in  bringing  this  material  into  shape,  though  little 
may  have  yet  been  done  in  proportion  to  what  remains  to 


do ;  \  and  already  it  seems  not  too  much  to  say  that  the 
vague  outlines  of  a  philosophy  of  pi 
beginning  to  come  within  our  view.^ 


i 


!  V 


I    ' 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE   DEVELOPMENT   OF  CULTURE. 

StngeH  of  culture,  induntrinl,  intolloctual,  political,  moral— toovolopmont 
of  culture  in  groat  moasuro  corresponds  with  transitiontroni  suvago 
tlirough  barbaric  to  civilized  lifo-JPj^ogressioji-thoory — Dogcneration- 
tboory — Dovelopmont-thoory  includes TiTilTiTtho  one  as  priinory,  the 
other  aa  secondary — Historical  and  traditional  evidence  not  available 
as  to  JoiK^stages  of  culture — Historical  evidence  as  to  principles  of 
Degeneration-iEthnologlcal  evidence  as  to  rise  and  fall  in  culture 
from  comparison  of  diflferont  levels  of  culture  in  branches  of  the 
same  raceJ- Extent  of  historically  recorded  antiquity  of  civilization — 
Prehistoruj  Archajology  extends  the  antiquity  of  man  in  low  stages 
of  civilization -/Traces  of  Stone  Ago,  corroborated  by  megalithin 
structures,  lake  dwellings,  shell-heap>s,  burial  places,  &c.,  prove 
original  low  culture  throughout  the  world — Stages  of  Progressive 
Development  in  industrial  urts.J 

In  taking  up  the  problem  of  the  development  of  culture 
as  a  branch  of  ethnological  research,  a  first  proceeding  is  to 
obtain  a  means  of  measurement.  Seeking  something  like  a 
definite  line  along  which  to  reckon  progression  and  retro- 
gression in  civilization,  we  may  apparently  find  it  best  in 
the  classification  of  real  tribes  and  nations,  past  and  present. 
Civilization  actually  existing  among  mankind  in  different 
grades,  we  are  enabled  to  estimate  and  compare  it  by  positive 
examples.  The  educated  world  of  Europe  and  America 
practically  settles  a  standard  by  simply  placing  its  own 
nations  at  one  end  of  the  social  series  and  savage  tribes  at 
the  other,  arranging  the  rest  of  mankind  between  these  limits 
according  as  they  correspond  more  closely  to  savage  or  to 
cultured  lile.  The  principal  criteria  of  classification  are 
the  absence  or  presence,  high  or  low  development,  of  the 
industrial  arts,  especially  metal-working,  manufacture  of 


THE  DKVELOPMKNi'  OF  CULTURK. 


ar 


implements  and  vobbcIb,  agriculture,  architecture,  &c.,  the 
extent  of  Bcientifio  knowledge,  the  definitenoBS  of  moral 
principlcB,  the  condition  of  religious  belief  and  ceremony, 
the  degree  of  social  and  political  organization,  and  so  forth. 
Thus,  on  the  definite  baBis  of  compared  factB,  ethnographers 
are  able  to  set  up  at  least  a  rough  scale  of  civilization.  Few 
would  dispute  that  the  following  races  are  arranged  rightly 
in  order  of  culture : — Australian,  Tahitian,  Aztec,  ChincBe, 
Italian.  By  treating  the  development  of  civilization  on  this 
plain  ethnographic  basis,  many  difficulties  may  be  avoided 
which  have  embarrassed  its  discussion.  This  may  be  seen 
by  a  glance  at  the  relation  which  theoretical  principles  of 
civilization  bear  to  the  transitions  to  be  observed  as  matter 
of  fact  between  the  extremes  of  savage  and  cultured  life. 

From  an  ideal  point  of  view,  civilization  may  be  looked 
upon  as  the  general  improvement  of  mankind  by  higher  ~j 
organization  of  the  individual  and  of  society  to  the  end  of^ 
promoting  at  once  man's  goodness,  pow(»f,  and  happiixeiBS. 
This  theoretical  civilization  does  in  no  small  measure  cor- 
respond with  actual  civilization,  as  traced  by  comparing 
savagery  with  barbarism,  and  barbarism  with  modern  edu- 
cated life.  So  far  as  we  take  into  account  onhi.  material 
and  intellectual  culture,  this  is  especially  true.  [Acquaint- 
ance with  the  physical  laws  of  the  world,  and  the  accom- 
panying power  of  adapting  nature  to  man's  own  ends,  are, 
on  the  whole,  lowest  among  savages,  mean  among  barba- 
rians, and  highest  among  modern  educated  nations.*]  Thus 
a  transition  from  the  savage  state  to  our  own  would  be, 
practically,  that^vejy  progress  of  art  and  knowledge  which 
is  one  main  element  in  the  development  of  culture. . 

But  even  those  students  who  hold  most  strongly  that  the 
general  course  of  civilization,  as  measured  along  the  scale 
of  races  from  savages  to  ourselves,  is  progress  towards  the 
benefit  of  mankind,  must  admit  many  and  manifold  ex- 
ceptions. Industrial  and  intellectual  culture  by  no  means 
advances  unHormly  in  all  its  branches,  and  in  fact  excellence 
in  various  of  its  details  is  often  obtained  under  conditions 


'1^'  I 


/ 


Hi  :! 


ii  i; 


ii 


28  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  CULTURE. 

which  keep  back  culture  as  a  whole^  It  is  true  that  these 
exceptions  seldom  swamp  the  general  rule ;  and  the  English- 
man, admitting  that  he  does  not  climb  trees  like  the  wild 
Australian,  nor  track  game  like  the  savage  of  the  Brazilian 
forest,  nor  compete  with  the  ancient  Etruscan  and  the 
modern  Chinese  in  delicacy  of  goldsmith's  work  and  ivory 
carving,  nor  reach  the  classic  Greek  level  of  oratory  and 
sculpture,  may  yet  claim  for  himself  a  general  condition 
above  any  of  these  races.  ]  But  there  actually  have  to  be 
taken  into  account  developments  of  science  and  art  which 
tend  directly  against  culture.  To  have  learnt  to  give  poison 
secretly  and  effectually,  to  have  raised  a  corrupt  literature 
to  pestilent  perfection,  to  have  organized  a  successful 
scheme  to  arrest  free  enc[uiry  and  proscribe  free  expression, 
are  works  of  knowledge  and  skill  whose  progress  toward 
their  goal  has  hardly  conduced  to  the  gen  ral  good,  f  Thus, 
even  in  comparing  mental  and  artistic  culture  among  several 
peoples,  the  balance  of  good  and  ill  is  not  quite  easy  to 
strike.  ! 

If  not  only  knowledge  and  art,  but  at  the  same  time 
moral  and  political  excellence,  be  taken  into  consideration, 
it  becomes  yet  harder  to  reckon  on  an  ideal  scale  the 
advance  or  decline  from  stage  to  stage  of  culture.  In  fact, 
a  combined  intellectual  and  moral  measure  of  human  con- 
dition is  an  instrument  which  no  student  has  as  yet  learnt 
properly  to  handle.  Even  granting  that  intellectual,  moral, 
and  political  life  may,  on  a  broad  view,  be  seen  to  progress 
together,  it  is  obvious  that  they  are  far  from  advancing  with 
equal  steps.  It  may  be  taken  as  man's  rule  of  duty  in  the 
world,  that  he  shall  strive  to  know  as  well  as  he  can  find 
out,  and  to  do  as  well  as  he  knows  how.  \But  the  parting 
asunder  of  these  two  great  principles,  that  separation  of 
intelligence  from  virtue  which  accounts  for  so  much  of  the 
wrong-doing  of  mankind,  is  continually  seen  to  happen  in 
the  great  movements  of  civilization.  As  oiie,conspicuous 
instance  of  what  all  history  stands  to  prove>-if  we  study 
the  early  ages  of  Christianit^we  may  see  men  with  minds 


il,' 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  CULTURE. 


29 


pervaded  by  the  new  religion  of  duty,  holiness,  and  love, 
yet  at  the  same  time  actually  falling  away  in  intellectual 
life,  thus  at  once  vigorously  grasping  one  halLof  civilization, 
and  contemptuously  casting  off  the  other.  (Whether  in  high 
ranges  or  in  low  of  human  life,  it  may  be  seen  that  advance 
of  culture  seldom  results  at  once  in  unmixed  good.l  Courage, 
honesty,  generosity,  are  virtues  which  may  sufi^,  at  least 
for  a  time,  by  the  development  of  a  sense  of  value  of  life 
and  property.  The  savage  who  adopts  something  of  foreign 
civilization  tT5o  often  loses  his  ruder  virtues  without  gaining 
an  equivalent.  /The  white  invader  or  colonist,  though  repre- 
senting on  the  whole  a  higher  moral  standard  than  the 
savage  he  improves  or  destroys,  often  represents  his  standard 
very  ill,  and  at  best  can  hardly  claim  to  substitute  a  life 
stronger,  nobler,  and  purer  at  every  point  than  that  which 
he  supersedes.  ?  The  onward  movement  from  barbarism  has 
dropped  behind  it  more  than  one  quality  of  barbaric  cha- 
racter, which  cultured  modern  men  look  back  on  with  regret, 
and  will  even  strive  to  regain  by  futile  attempts  tos^oi)  the 
course  of  history,  and  restore  the  past  in  the  midst  of  the 
present.  ^^  it  is  with  social  institutions^  ,Th^  slavery 
recognized  by  savage  and  barbarous  races  is  preferable  jn 
kind  to  that  which  existed  for  centuries  in  late~European 
colonies.  iThe  relation  of  the  sexes  among  many  savage 
tribes  is  more  healthy  than  among  the  richer  classes  of  the 
Mohammedan  world/!  As  a  supreme  authority  of  govern- 
ment, the  savage  councils  of  chiefs  and  elders  compare 
favourably  with  the  unbridled  despotism  under  which  so 
many  cultured  races  have  groaned.  \  The  Creek  Indians, 
asked  concerning  their  religion,  replied  that  where  agree- 
ment was  not  to  be  had,  it  was  best  to  'let  every  man 
paddle  his  canoe  his  own  way:'  and  after  long  ages  of  theo- 
logical strife  and  persecution,  the  modern  world  seems 
coming  to  think  these  savages  not  far  wrong. 

Among  accounts  of  savage  life,  it  is  not,  indeed,  uncom- 
mon to  find  details  of  admirable  moral  and  social  excellence. 
To  take  one  prominent  instance,  Lieut.  Bruijn  Kops  and 


i^ 


li 


11  i|  ji ! 
Ui   111 


iii:,;!i 


80 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  CULTUEE. 


Mr.  Wallace  have  described,  among  the  rude  Papuans  of '- 
the  Eastern  Archigelago,  a  habitual  truthfulness,  rightful- 
ness, and  kindliness  which  it  would  be  hard  to  match  in  / 
the  general  moral  life  of  Persia  or  India,  to  say  nothing  of 
many  a  civilized  European  district.^  Such  tribes  may  count 
as  the  '  blameless  Ethiopians '  of  the  modern  world,  and 
from  them  an  important  lesson  may  be  learnt.  FEthno- 
graphers  who  seek  in^odern  savages  types  of  the  remotely 
ancient  human  race  at  large,  are  bound  by  such  examples 
to  consider  the.  rude  life  of  primaeval  man  under  favourable 
conditions  to  have  been,  in  its  measure,  a  good  and  happy 
life.  On  the  other  hand,  the  pictures  drawn  by  some 
travellers  of  savagery  as  a  kind  of  paradisiacal  state  may  be 
taken  too  exclusively  from  the  bright  side.  It  is  remarked 
as  to  these  very  Papuans,  that  Europeans  whose  intercourse 
with  them  has  been  hostile  become  so  impressed  with  the 
wild-beast-like  cunning  of  their  attacks,  as  hardly  to  believe 
in  their  having  feelings  in  common  with  civilized  men.  Our 
Polar  explorers  may  well  speak  in  kindly  terms  of  the 
industry,  the  honesty,  the  cheerful  considerate  politeness 
of  the  Esquimaux ;  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  these 
rude  people  are  on  their  best  behaviour  with  foreigners,  and 
that  their  character  is  apt  to  be  foul  and  brutal  where  they 
have  nothing  to  expect  or  fear.  The  Caribs  are  described 
as  a  cheerful,  modest,  courteous  race,  and  so  honest  among 
themselves  that  if  they  missed  anything  out  of  a  house  they 
said  quite  naturally,  '  There  has  been  a  Christian  here.' 
Yet  the  malignant  ferocity  with  which  these  estimable  people 
tortured  their  prisoners  of  war  with  knife  and  fire-brand 
and  red  pepper,  and  then  cooked  and  ate  them  in  solemn 
debauch,  gave  fair  reason  for  the  name  of  Carib  (Cannibal) 
to  become  the  generic  name  of  man-eaters  in  European 
languages.^  So  when  we  read  descriptions  of  the  hospitality, 
the  gentleness,  the  bravery,  the  deep  religious  feeling  of  the 


V, 


G.  W.  Earl,  *  Papuans,'  p.  79  ;  A.  R,  Wallace,  'Eastern  Archipelago.' 
"  Rochefort,  '  lies  Antilles,'  pp.  400-480. 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  CULTUBE. 


81 


e  Papuans  of- 
ness,  rightfiil- 
l  to  match  in  / 
ay  nothing  of 
3es  may  count 
n  world,  and 
rnt.  [Ethno- 
Jihjei  remotely 
uch  examples 
er  favourable 
)d  and  happy 
wn  by  some 
state  may  be 
;  is  remarked 
e  intercourse 
ised  with  the 
lly  to  believe 
3d  men.    Our 
erms  of  the 
le  politeness 
id  that  these 
•eigners,  and 
I  where  they 
re  described 
)nest  among 
I  house  they 
stian  here.' 
lable  people 

fire-brand 

in  solemn 
(Cannibal) 

European 
lospitality, 
jling  of  the 

Archipelago.' 


North  American  Indians,  we  admit  their  claims  to  our 
sincere  admiration  ;  but  we  must  not  forget  that  they  were 
hospitable  literally  to  a  fault,  that  their  gentleness  would 
pass  with  a  flash  of  anger  into  frenzy,  that  their  bravery 
was  stained  with  cruel  and  treacherous  malignity,  that  their 
religion  expressed  itself  in  absurd  belief  and  useless  cere- 
mony. The  ideal  savage  of  the  18th  century  may  be  held 
up  as  a  living  reproof  to  vicious  and  frivolous  London  ;  but 
in  sober  fact,  a  Londoner  who  should  attempt  to  lead  the 
atrocious  life  which  the  real  savage  may  lead  with  impunity 
and  even  respect,  would  be  a  criminal  only  allowed  to  follow 
his  savage  models  during  his  short  intervals  out  of  gaol. 
Savage  moral  standards  are  real  enough,  but  they  are  far 
looser  and  weaker  than  ours.  We  may,  I  think,  apply  the 
often-repeated  comparison  of  savages  to  children  as  fairly 
to  their  moral  as  to  their  intellectual  condition.  The  better 
savage  social  life  seems  in  but  unstable  equilibrium,  liable 
to  be  easily  upset  by  a  touch  of  distress,  temptation,  or 
violence,  and  then  it  becomes  the  worse  savage  life,  which 
we  know  by  so  many  dismal  and  hideous  examples.  Alto- 
gether, it  may  be  admitted  that  some  rude  tribes  lead  a  life 
to  be  envied  by  some  barbarous  races,  and  even  by  the 
outcasts  of  higher  nations.  But  that  any  known  savage 
tribe  would  not  be  improved  by  judicious  civilization,  is  a 
proposition  which  no  moralist  would  dare  to  make ;  while 
the  general  tenour  of  the  evidence  goes  far  to  justify  the 
view  that  on  the  whole  the  civilized  man  is  not  only  wiser 
and  more  capable  than  the  savage,  but  also  better  and 
happier,  and  that  the  barbarian  stands  between. 

It  might,  perhaps,  seem  practicable  to  compare  the  whole 
average  of  the  civilization  of  two  peoples,  or  of  the  same 
people  in  different  ages,  by  reckoning  each,  item  by  item, 
to  a  sort  of  sum-total,  and  striking  a  balance  between  them, 
much  as  an  appraiser  compares  the  value  of  two  stocks  of 
merchandise,  differ  as  they  may  both  in  quantity  and 
quality.  But  the  few  remarks  here  made  will  have  shown 
hov,'  loose  must  be  the  working-out  of  these  rough-and-ready 


m  i 


ii 


bill 


!!|l:;:n! 


32 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  CULTURE. 


estimates  of  culture.  In  fact,  much  of  the  labour  spent  in 
investigating  the  progress  and  decline  of  civilization  has 
been  mis-spent,  in  premature  attempts  to  treat  that  as  a 
whole  which  is  as  yet  only  susceptible  of  divided  study. 
The  present  comparatively  narrow  argument  on  the  develop- 
ment of  culture  at  any  rate  avoids  this  greatest  perplexity. 
It  takes  cognizance  principally  of  knowledge,  art,  and 
custom,  and  indeed  only  very  partial  cognizance  within 
this  field,  the  vast  range  of  physical,  political,  social,  and 
ethical  considerations  being  left  all  but  untouched,  its 
standard  of  reckoning  progi'ess  and  decline  is  not  that  of 
ideal  good  and  evil,  but  of  movement  along  a  measured  line 
from  grade  to  grade  of  actual  savagery,  barbarism,  and 
civilization.  The  thesis  which  I  venture  to  sustain,  within 
limits,  is  simply  this,  that  the  savage  state  in  some  measure 
represents  an  early  condition  of  mankind,  out  of  which  the 
higher  culture  has  gradually  been  developed  or  evolved,  by 
processes  still  in  regular  operation  as  of  old,  the  result 
showing  that,  on  the  whole,  progress  has  far  prevailed  over 
relapse. 

On  this  proposition,  the  main  tendency  of  human  society 
during  its  long  term  of  existence  has  been  to  pass  from  a 
savage  to  a  civilized  state.  Now  all  must  admit  a  great 
part  of  this  assertion  to  be  not  only  truth,  but  truism. 
Referred  to  direct  history,  a  great  section  of  it  proves  to 
belong  not  to  the  domain  of  speculation,  but  to  that  of  positive 
knowledge.  It  is  mere  matter  of  chronicle  that  modern 
civilization  is  a  development  of  mediaeval  civilization,  which 
again  is  a  development  from  civilization  of  the  order  repre- 
sented in  Greece,  Assyria,  or  Egypt.  Thus  the  higher 
culture  being  clearly  traced  back  to  what  may  be  called  the 
middle  culture,  the  question  which  remains  is,  whether  this 
middle  culture  may  be  traced  back  to  the  lower  culture, 
that  is,  to  savagery.  To  affirm  this,  is  merely  to  assert 
that  the  same  kind  of  development  in  culture  which  has 
gone  on  inside  our  range  of  knowledge  has  also  gone  on 
outside  it,  its  course  of  proceeding  being  unaffected  by  our 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  CULTURE. 


83 


bour  Bpent  in 
trilization  has 
eat  that  as  a 
ivided  study. 
a  tho  develop- 
st  perplexity, 
ige,  art,  and 
zance  within 
al,  social,  and 
touched,  its 
18  not  that  of 
measured  line 
Lrbarism,  and 
istain,  within 
some  measure 
of  which  the 
ir  evolved,  by 
d,  the  result 
revailed  over 

uman  society 

)  pass  from  a 

imit  a  great 

but  truism. 

it  proves  to 

at  of  positive 

lat  modern 

ation,  which 

order  repre- 

the   higher 

)e  called  the 

whether  this 

ver  culture, 

y  to  assert 

which  has 

so  gone  on 

jted  by  our 


having  or  not  having  reporters  present.  If  any  one  holds 
that  human  thought  and  action  were  worked  out  in  primaeval 
times  according  to  laws  essentially  other  than  those  of  the 
modern  world,  it  is  for  him  to  prove  by  valid  evidence 
this  anomalous  state  of  things,  otherwise  the  doctrine  of 
permanent  principle  will  hold  good,  as  in  astronomy  or 
geology.  That  the  tendency  of  culture  has  been  similar 
throughout  the  existence  of  human  society,  and  that  we 
may  fairly  judge  from  its  known  historic  course  what  its 
prehistoric  course  may  have  been,  is  a  theory  clearly  entitled 
to  precedence  as  a  fundamental  principle  of  ethnographic 
research. 

Gibbon,  in  his  'Roman  Empire,'  expresses  in  a  few 
vigorous  sentences  his  theory  of  the  course  of  culture,  as 
from  savagery  upward.     Judged  by  the  knowledge  of  nearly 
a  century  later,  his  remarks  cannot,  indeed,  pass  unques- 
tioned.   Especially  he  seems  to  rely  with  misplaced  con- 
fidence on  traditions  of  archaic  rudeness,  to  exaggerate  the 
lowness  of  savage  life,  to  underestimate  the  liability  to  decay 
of  the  ruder  arts,  and  in  his  view  of  the  effect  of  high  on 
low  civilization,  to  dwell  too  exclusively  on  the  brighter  side. 
But,  on  the  whole,  the  great  historian's  judgment  seems  so 
substantially  that  of  the  unprejudiced  modern  student  of  the 
progressionist  school,  that  I  gladly  quote  the  passage  here 
at  length,  and  take  it  as  a  text  to  represent  the  development- 
theory  of  culture : — '  The  discoveries  of  ancient  and  modern 
navigators,  and  the  domestic  history,  or  tradition,  of  the 
most  enlightened  nations,  represent  the  human   savage 
naked  both  in  mind  and  body,  and  destitute  of  laws,  of 
arts,  of  ideas,  and  almost  of  language.     From  this  abject 
condition,  perhaps  the  primitive  and  universal  state  of  man, 
he  has  gradually  arisen  to  command  the  animals,  to  fertilise 
the  earth,  to  traverse  the  ocean,  and  to  measure  the  heavens. 
His  progress  in  the  improvement  and  exercise  of  his  mental 
and  corporeal  faculties  has  been  irregular  and  various ; 
infinitely  slow  in  the  beginning,  and  increasing  by  degrees 
with  redoubled  velocity :  ages  of  laborious  ascent  have  been 

VOL.  I.  D 


34 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OP  CULTUBE. 


n  1 1 


followed  by  a  moment  of  rapid  downfall ;  and  the  several 
climates  of  the  globe  have  felt  the  vicissitudes  of  light 
and  darkness.  Yet  the  experience  of  four  thousand  years 
should  enlarge  our  hopes,  and  diminish  our  apprehensions : 
we  cannot  determine  to  what  height  the  human  species  may 
aspire  in  their  advances  towards  perfection  ;  but  it  may 
safely  be  presumed  that  no  people,  unless  the  face  of  nature 
is  changed,  will  relapse  into  their  original  barbarism.  The 
improvements  of  society  may  be  viewed  under  a  threefold 
aspect.  1.  The  poet  or  philosopher  illustrates  his  age  and 
coun'^ry  by  the  efforts  of  a  single  mind  ;  but  these  superior 
powers  of  reason  or  fancy  are  rare  and  spontaneous  produc- 
tions ;  and  the  genius  of  Homer,  or  Cicero,  or  Newton, 
would  excite  less  admiration,  if  they  could  be  created  by 
the  will  of  a  prince,  or  the  lessons  of  a  preceptor.  2.  The 
benefits  of  law  and  policy,  of  trade  and  manufactures,  of 
arts  and  sciences,  are  more  solid  and  permanent ;  and  many 
individuals  may  be  qualified,  by  education  and  discipline,  to 
promote,  in  their  respective  stations,  the  interest  of  the 
community.  But  this  general  order  is  the  effect  of  skill 
and  labour ;  and  the  complex  machinery  may  be  decayed  by 
time,  or  injured  by  violence.  3.  Fortunately  for  mankind, 
the  more  useful,  or,  at  least,  more  necessary  arts,  can  be 
performed  without  superior  talents,  or  national  subordina- 
tion ;  without  the  powers  of  one,  or  the  union  of  many. 
Each  village,  each  family,  each  individual,  must  always 
possess  both  ability  and  inclination  to  perpetuate  the  use 
of  fire  and  of  metals ;  the  propagation  and  service  of 
domestic  animals  ;  the  method  of  hunting  and  fishing ;  the 
rudiments  of  navigation  ;  the  imperfect  cultivation  of  com, 
or  other  nutritive  grain ;  and  the  simple  practice  of  the  me- 
chanic trades.  Private  genius  and  public  industry  may  be 
extirpated  ;  but  these  hardy  plants  survive  the  tempest,  and 
strike  an  everlasting  root  into  the  most  unfavourable  soil. 
The  splendid  days  of  Augustus  and  Trajan  were  eclipsed 
by  a  cloud  of  ignorance  ;  and  the  barbarians  subverted  the 
laws  and  palaces  of  Rome.  But  the  scythe,  the  invention  or 


m 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OP  CULTURE. 


35 


emblem  of  Saturn,  still  continued  annually  to  mow  the 
harvests  of  Italy  ;  and  the  human  feasts  of  the  Lsestrigons 
have  never  been  renewed  on  the  coast  of  Campania.  Since 
the  first  discovery  of  the  arts,  war,  commerce,  and  religious 
zeal,  have  diffused,  among  the  savages  of  the  Old  and  New 
World,  these  inestimable  gifts ;  they  have  been  successively 
propagated;  they  can  never  be  lost.  We  may  therefore 
acquiesce  in  the  pleasing  conclusion,  that  every  age  of  the 
world  has  increased,  and  still  increases,  the  real  wealth, 
the  happiness,  the  knowledge,  and  perhaps  the  virtue,  of 
the  human  race.'  ^ 

This  progression-theory  of  civilization  may  be  contrasted 
with  its  rival,  the  degeneration-theory,  in  the  dashing 
invective  of  Count  Joseph  de  Maistre,  written  toward  the 
beginning  of  this  century.  '  Nous  partons  toujours,'  he 
says,  '  de  I'hypothese  banale  que  I'homme  s'est  ^lev^  gra- 
duellement  de  la  barbaric  k  la  science  et  k  la  civilisation. 
C'est  le  reve  favori,  c'est  I'erreur-mfere,  et  comme  dit  I'dcole 
le  proto-pseudes  de  notre  siecle.  Mais  si  les  philosophes 
de  ce  malheureux  sifecle,  avec  Thorrible  perversity  que  nous 
leur  avons  connue,  et  qui  s'obstinent  encore  malgr^  les 
avertissements  qu'ils  ont  re9us,  avaient  poss^d^  de  plus 
quelques-unes  de  ces  connaissances  qui  ont  dh.  ndcessaire- 
ment  appartenir  aux  premiers  hommes,  &c.'  ^  The 
degeneration-theory,  which  this  eloquent  antagonist  of 
'  modern  ideas '  indeed  states  in  an  extreme  shape,  has 
received  the  sanction  of  men  of  great  learning  and  ability. 
It  has  practically  resolved  itself  into  two  assumptions,  first, 
that  the  history  of  culture  began  with  the  appearance  on 
earth  of  a  semi-civilized  race  of  men,  and  second,  that  from 
this  stage  culture  has  proceeded  in  two  ways,  backward  to 
produce  savages,  and  forward  to  produce  civilized  men. 
The  idea  of  the  original  condition  of  man  being  one  of 
more  or  less  high  culture,  must  have  a  certain  prominence 


'  Gibbon,  'Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,'  ch.  xxxviii. 
"  De  Maistr'^,  'Soirees  de  St.  P^tersbourg,'  vol.  ii.  p.  150. 

D  2 


36 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OP  CULTURE. 


given  to  it  on  account  of  its  considerable  hold  on  public 
opinion.    As  to   definite  evidence,  however,  it   does  not 
seem  to  have  any  ethnological  basis  whatever.     Indeed,  I 
scarcely  think  that  a  stronger  counter-persuasion  could  be 
used  on  an  intelligent  student  inclined  to  the  ordinary 
degeneration-theory  than  to  induce  him  to  examine  criti- 
cally and  impartially  the  arguments  of  the  advocates  on  his 
own  side.     It  must  be  borne  in  mind,  however,  that  the 
grounds  on  which  this  theory  has  been  held  have  generally 
been  rather  theological  than  ethnological.     The  strength 
of  the  position  it  haS  thus  occupied  may  be  well  instanced 
from  the  theories  adopted  by  two  eminent  French  writers 
of  the   last  century,  which  in  a  remarkable   way  piece 
together  a  belief  in  degeneration  and  an  argument  for  pro- 
gression.    De    Brosses,  whose  whole   intellectual   nature 
turned  to  the  progression -theory,  argued  that  by  studying 
what  actually  now  happens  'we  may  trace  men  upward  from 
the  savage  state  to  which  the  flood  and  dispersion  had 
reduced  them.'  ^      And   Goguet,   holding   that    the    pre- 
existing arts  perished  at  the  deluge,  was  thus  left  free  to 
work    out  on   the    most   thorough-going    progressionist 
principles  his  theories  of  the  invention  of  fire,  cooking, 
agriculture,  law,  and  so  forth,  among  tribes  thus  reduced 
to  a  condition  of  low  savagery.^    At  the  present  time  it  is 
not  unusual  for  the  origin  of  civilization  to  be  treated  as 
matter  of  dogmatic  theology.     It  has  happened  to  me  more 
than  once  to  be  assured  from  the  pulpit  that  the  theories  of 
ethnologists  who  consider  man  to  have  risen  from  a  low 
original  condition  are  delusive  fancies,  it  being  revealed 
truth  that  man  was  originally  in  a  high  condition.     Now  as 
a  matter  of  Biblical  criticism  it  must  be  remembered  that  a 
large  proportion  of  modern  theologians  are  far  from  accept- 
ing such  a  dogma.     But  in  investigating  the  problem  of 
early  civilization,  the  claim  to  ground  scientific  opinion  upon 

'  De  Brosses,  'Dieux  Fetiches,'  p.  15  ;  'Formation  des  Langues,'  vol.  i. 
p.  4!)  ;  vol.  ii.  p.  32. 
^  Goguet,  'Origine  des  Lois,  des  Arts,'  Ac,  vol.  i.  p.  88. 


1^  'IliHH!! 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OP  CULTURE. 


37 


I  on  public 

t   does  not' 

Indeed,  I 

on  could  be 

le  ordinary 

imine  criti- 

catoB  on  his 

er,  that  the 

re  generally 

be  strength 

U  instanced 

nch  writers 

way  piece 

Bnt  for  pro- 

ual   nature 

►y  studying 

pward  from 

)ersion  had 

the    pre- 

left  free  to 

>gressionist 

B,  cooking, 

us  reduced 

t  time  it  is 

treated  as 

o  me  more 

theories  of 

i'om  a  low 

g  revealed 

Now  as 

3red  that  a 

3m  accept- 

jroblem  of 

Inion  upon 

ngues,'  vol.  i. 


t 


a  bflp's  of  revelation  is  in  itself  objectionable.  It  would 
be,  1  think,  inexcusable  if  students  who  have  seen  in 
Astronomy  and  Geology  the  unhappy  results  of  attempting 
to  base  science  on  religion,  should  countenance  a  similar 
attempt  in  Ethnology. 

By  long  experience  of  the  course  of  human  society,  the 
principle  of  development  in  culture  has  become  so  in- 
grained in  our  philosophy  that  ethnologists,  of  whatever 
school,  hardly  doubt  but  that,  whether  by  progress  or 
degradation,  savagery  and  civilization  are  connected  as 
lower  and  higher  stages  of  one  formation.  As  such,  then, 
two  principal  theories  claim  to  account  for  their  relation. 
As  to  the  first  hypothesis,  which  takes  savage  life  as  in 
some  sort  representing  an  early  human  state  whence  higher 
states  were,  in  time,  developed,  it  has  to  be  noticed  that 
advocates  of  this  progression-theory  are  apt  to  look  back 
toward  yet  lower  original  conditions  of  mankind.  It  has 
been  truly  remarked  that  the  modem  naturalist's  doctrine 
of  progressive  development  has  encouraged  a  train  of 
thought  singularly  accordant  with  the  Epicurean  theory  of 
man's  early  existence  on  earth,  in  a  condition  not  far 
removed  from  that  of  the  lower  animals.  On  such  a  view, 
savage  life  itself  would  be  a  far  advanced  condition.  If  the 
advance  of  culture  be  regarded  as  taking  place  along  one 
general  line,  then  existing  savagery  stands  directly  inter- 
mediate between  animal  and  civilized  life  ;  if  along  different 
lines,  then  savagery  and  civilization  may  be  considered  as 
at  least  indirectly  connected  through  their  common  origin. 
The  method  and  evidence  here  employed  are  not,  however, 
suitable  for  the  discussion  of  this  remoter  part  of  the 
problem  of  civilization.  Nor  is  it  necessary  to  enquire  how, 
under  this  or  any  other  theory,  the  savage  state  first  came 
to  be  on  earth.  It  is  enough  that,  by  some  means  or  other, 
it  has  actually  come  into  existence ;  and  so  far  as  it  may 
serve  as  a  guide  in  inferring  an  early  condition  of  the 
human  race  at  large,  so  far  the  argument  takes  the  very 
practicable  shape  of  a  discussion  turning  rather  on  actual 


>     i 


!' 


If' 
'■it 


38 


THE  DEVELOPMENT   OP  CULTURE. 


/^ 


than  imaginary  states  of  society.  The  second  hypothesis, 
which  regards  higher  culture  as  original,  and  the  savage 
condition  as  produced  from  it  by  a  course  of  degeneration, 
at  once  cuts  the  hard  knot  of  the  origin  of  culture.  It 
takes  for  granted  a  supernatural  interference,  as  where 
Archbishop  Whately  simply  refers  to  miraculous  revelation 
that  condition  above  the  level  of  barbarism  which  he  con- 
siders to  have  been  man's  original  state.^  It  may  be  inci- 
dentally remarked,  however,  that  the  doctrine  of  original 
civilization  bestowed  on  man  by  divine  intervention,  by  no 
means  necessarily  involves  the  view  that  this  original  civil- 
ization was  at  a  high  level.  Its  advocates  are  free  to  choose 
their  starting-point  of  culture  above,  at,  or  below  the  savage 
condition,  as  may  on  the  evidence  seem  to  them  most 
reasonable. 

The  two  theories  which  thus  account  for  the  relation  of 


/        savage  to  cultured  life  may  be  contrasted  according  to  their 
I  ^  main  character,  as  the  progression-theory  and  the  degrada- 
\     tion-theory.     Yet  of  course  the  progression-theory  recog- 
^   nizes  degradation,  and  the  degradation-theory  recognizes 
J  progression,  as  powerful  influences  in  the  course  of  culture- 
's Under  proper  limitations  the  principles  of  both  theories  are 
/  conformable  to  historical  knowledge,  which  shows  us,  on 
/     the  one  hand,  that  the  state  of  the  higher  nations   was 
I       reached  by  progression  from  a  lower  state,  and,   on  the 
k      other  hand,  that  culture  gained  by  progression  may  be  lost 
^-by  degradation.     If  in  this  enquiry  we  should  be  obliged  to 
end  in  the  dark,  at  any  rate  we  need   not  begin  there. 
History,  taken  as  our  guide  in  explaining  the  different  stages 
of  civilization,  offers  a  theory  based  on  actual  experience. 
This  is  a  development-theory,  in  which  both  advance  and 
relapse  have  their  acknowledged  places.     But  so  far  as 
history  is  to  be  our  criterion,  progression  is  primary  and 
degradation  secondary;  culture  must  be  gained  before  it 

*  Whately,  '  Essay  on  the  Origin  of  Civilization,'  in  Miscellaneous 

Lectures,  &c.  His  evidence  is  examined  in  detail  in  my  '  Early  History 

of  Mankind,'  ch.   vii.    See  also  W.  Cooke  Taylor,  '  Natural  History  of 
Society.' 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  CULTURE. 


39 


can  bo  lost.  Moreoverj  in  btriking  a  balance  between  the 
effects  of  forward  and  backward  movement  in  civilization, 
it  must  be  borne  in  mind  how  powerfully  the  diffusion  of 
culture  acts  in  preserving  the  results  of  progress  from  the 
attacks  of  degeneration.  A  progressive  movement  in  culture 
spreads,  and  becomes  independent  of  the  fate  of  its  origi- 
nators. What  is  produced  in  some  limited  district  is  dif- 
fused over  a  wider  and  wider  area,  where  the  process  of 
effectual  '  stamping  out '  becomes  more  and  more  difficult. 
Thus  it  is  even  possible  for  tho  habits  and  inventions  of 
races  long  extinct  to  remain  as  the  common  property  cf 
surviving  nations :  and  the  destructive  actions  which  make 
such  havoc  with  the  civilizations  of  particular  districts  fail 
to  destroy  the  civilization  of  the  world. 

The  enquiry  as  to  the  relation  of  savagery  to  barbarism 
and  semi-civilization  lies  almost  entirely  in  pre^historic  or 
extra- historic  regions.  This  is  of  course  an  unfavourable 
condition,  and  must  be  frankly  accepted.  Direct  history 
hardly  tells  anything  of  the  changes  of  savage  culture, 
except  where  in  contact  with  and  under  the  dominant 
influence  of  foreign  civilization,  a  state  of  things  which  is 
little  to  our  present  purpose.  Periodical  examinations  of  low 
races  otherwise  left  isolated  to  work  out  their  own  destinies, 
would  be  interesting  evidence  to  the  student  of  civilization 
if  they  could  be  made ;  but  unfortunately  they  cannot. 
The  lower  races,  wanting  documentary  memorials,  loose  in 
preserving  tradition,  and  ever  ready  to  clothe  myth  in  its 
shape,  can  seldom  be  trusted  in  their  stories  of  long-past 
ages.  History  is  oral  or  written  record  which  can  be 
satisfactorily  traced  into  contact  with  the  events  it  de- 
scribes ;  and  perhaps  no  account  of  the  course  of  culture  in 
its  lower  stages  can  satisfy  this  stringent  criterion.  Tradi- 
tions may  be  urged  in  support  either  of  the  progression- 
theory  or  of  the  degradation-theory.  These  traditions  may 
be  partly  true,  and  must  be  partly  untrue ;  but  whatever 
truth  or  untruth  they  may  contain,  there  is  such  difficulty 
in  separating  man's  recollection  of  what  was  from  his  specu- 


I' 


I  ; 


I'v 


40 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  CULTURE. 


lation  as  to  what  might  have  been,  that  ethnology  seoroB  not 
likely  to  gain  much  by  attempts  to  judge  of  early  stages  of 
civilization  on  a  traditional  basis.  The  problem  is  one 
which  has  occupied  the  philosophic  mind  even  in  savage 
and  barbaric  life,  and  has  been  solved  by  speculations 
assorted  as  facts,  and  by  traditions  which  are,  in  great 
measure,  more  realized  theories.  The  Chinese  can  show, 
with  all  due  gravity,  the  records  of  their  ancient  dynasties, 
and  tell  us  how  in  old  times  their  ancestors  dwelt  in  caves, 
clothed  themBelves  in  leaves,  and  ate  raw  flesh,  till,  under 
such  and  such  rulers,  they  were  taught  to  build  huts, 
prepare  skins  for  garments,  and  make  fire.^  Lucretius  can 
describe  to  us,  in  his  famous  linos,  the  large-boned,  hardy, 
lawless,  primctival  race  of  man,  living  the  roving  life  of  the 
wild  beasts  which  they  overcame  with  stones  and  heavy 
clubs,  devouring  berries  and  acorus,  ignorant  as  yet  of  fire, 
and  agriculture,  and  the  use  of  skins  for  clothing.  From 
this  state  the  Epicurean  poet  traces  up  the  development  of 
culture,  beginning  outside  but  ending  inside  the  range  of 
human  memory.^  To  the  same  class  belong  those  legends 
which;  starting  from  an  ancient  savage  state,  describe  its 
elevation  by  divine  civilizers:  this,  which  may  be  called 
the  supernatural  progression-theory,  is  exemplified  in  the 
familiar  culture-traditions  of  Peru  and  Italy. 

But  other  minds,  following  a  different  ideal  track  from 
the  present  to  the  past,  hav«^  seen  in  a  far  different  shapt' 
the  early  stages  of  human  life.  Those  men  whose  eyes  arv 
always  turned  to  look  back  on  the  wisdom  of  the  ancients, 
those  who  by  a  common  confusion  of  thought  ascribe  to 
men  of  old  the  wisdom  of  old  men,  those  who  hold  fast  to 
some  once-honoured  scheme  of  life  which  new  schemes  are 
superseding  before  their  eyes,  are  apt  to  carry  back  their 
thought  of  present  degeneration  into  far-gone  ages,  till  they 
reach  a  period  of  primaeval  glory.  The  Parsi  looks  back  to 
the  happy  rule  of  King  Yima,  when  men  and  cattle  were 
immortal,  when  water  and  trees  never  dried  up  and  food 

*  Cloguet,  vol,  iii.  p.  270.  "  Lucret.  v.  923,  &c.  ;  see  Hor.  Sat.  i.  8. 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OP  CULTURE. 


41 


jgy  BeoraB  not 
arly  Btages  of 
oblem  is  onu 
^en  in  savage 
specuIationB 
are,  in  great 
Be  can  Bhow, 
ant  dynaBties, 
welt  in  caves, 
ih,  till,  under 

build  huts, 
Lucretius  can 
)oned,  hardy, 
ng  life  of  the 
Qs  and  heavy 
18  yet  of  fire, 
ihing.  From 
velopment  of 
the  range  of 
hose  legends 

describe  its 
ay  be  called 

fied  in  the 

track  from 
"erent  shap** 
lose  eyes  &n> 
le  ancientB, 
t  ascribe  to 
lold  fast  to 
schemes  are 
back  their 
yea,  till  they 
oks  back  to 
cattle  vfer^ 
p  and  food 
or.  Sat.  i.  3. 


was  inexhaustible,  when  there  was  no  cold  nor  heat,  no 
envy  nor  old  ago.'  The  Buddhist  looks  back  to  the  ago  of 
glorious  soaring  beings  who  had  no  sin,  no  sex,  no  want  of 
food,  till  the  unhappy  hour  when,  tasting  a  delicious  scum 
that  formed  upon  the  surface  of  the  earth,  they  fell  into 
evil,  and  in  time  became  degraded  to  eat  rice,  to  bear 
children,  to  build  houses,  to  divide  property,  and  to 
establish  caste.  In  after  ages,  record  preserves  details  of 
the  continuing  course  of  degeneration.  It  was  King 
Chetiya  who  told  the  first  lie,  and  the  citizens  who  heard  of 
it,  not  knowing  what  a  lie  was,  asked  if  it  were  white,  black 
or  blue.  Men's  lives  grew  shorter  and  shorter,  and  it  was 
King  Maha  S^gara  who,  after  a  brief  reign  of  252,000  years, 
made  the  dismal  discovery  of  the  first  grey  hair.'* 

Admitting  the  imperfection  of  the  historical  record  as 
regards  the  lowest  stages  of  culture,  we  must  bear  in  mind 
that  it  tells  both  ways.  Niebuhr,  attacking  the  progression- 
ists of  the  18th  century,  remarks  that  they  have  overlooked 
the  fact '  that  no  single  example  can  be  brought  forward  of 
an  actually  savage  people  having  independently  become 
ci^  il  i zed.'  "*  Whately  appropriated  tl .  is  remark,  which  indeed 
lorms  the  kernel  of  his  well-known  Lecture  on  the  Origin  of 
Civilization :  '  Facts  are  stubborn  things,'  he  says,  *  and 
that  no  authenticated  instance  can  be  produced  of  savages 
that  ever  did  emerge,  unaided,  from  that  state  is  no  theory, 
but  a  statement,  hitherto  never  disproved,  of  a  matter  of 
fad.'  He  uses  this  as  an  argument  in  support  of  hi.s 
general  conclusion,  that  man  could  not  have  risen  indepen- 
dently from  a  savage  to  n.  civilized  state,  and  that  savages 
are  degenerate  descendauts  of  civilized  men.*  But  he  omits 
to  ask  the  counter-question,  whether  we  find  one  recorded  in- 
stance of  acivilized  peopie  falling  independently  into  a  savage 

'  'Avesta,'  trans.  Spiegel  &  Bleeck,  vol.  ii.  p.  50. 

"  Hardy,  '  Manual  of  Budhism,'  pp.  64,  128. 

'  Niebuhr,  *  ROmische  Geschichte,'  part  i.  p.  88  :  '  Nur  das  haben  8ie 
iiborsehen,  dasz  kein  einzigea  Boyspiel  von  eineni  wirklieh  wilden  Volk 
allfzuweisen  ist,  welches  frey  zur  Cultur  ubergegangon  ware.' 

*  Whately,  -  Essay  on  Origin  of  Oivilization.' 


''\'\  i 


42 


THE   DEVELOPMENT   OF  CULTURE. 


'  'iiiii 


state  ?  Any  such  record,  direct  and  well  vouched,  would  be  of 
high  interest  to  ethnologists,  though,  of  course,  it  would  not 
contradict  the  development-theory,  for  proving  loss  is  not 
disproving  previous  gain.  But  where  is  such  a  record  to  be 
found?  The  defect  of  historical  evidence  as  to  the  transi- 
tion between  savagery  and  higher  culture  is  a  two-sided  fact, 
only  half  taken  into  Archbishop  Whately's  one-sided  argu- 
ment. Fortunately  the  defect  is  by  no  means  fatal. 
Though  history  may  not  account  directly  for  the  existence 
and  explain  the  position  of  savages,  it  at  least  gives  evidence 
which  bears  closely  on  the  matter.  Moreover,  we  are  in 
various  ways  enabled  to  study  the  lower  course  of  culture  on 
evidence  which  cannot  have  been  tampered  with  to  support 
a  theory.  Old  traditional  lore,  however  untrustworthy  as 
direct  record  of  events,  contains  most  faithful  incidental 
descriptions  of  manners  and  customs ;  archaeology  displays 
old  structures  and  buried  relics  of  the  remote  past ;  philo- 
logy brings  out  the  undesigned  history  in  language,  which 
generation  after  generation  have  handed  down  without  a 
thought  of  its  having  such  significance ;  the  ethnological 
survey  of  the  races  of  the  world  tells  much  ;  the  ethnogra- 
phical comparison  of  their  condition  tells  more. 

Arrest  and  decline  in  civilization  are  to  be  recognized  as 
among  the  more  frequent  and  powerful  operations  of  national 
life.  That  knowledge,  arts,  and  institutions  should  decay  in 
certain  districts,  that  peoples  once  progressive  should  lag 
behind  and  be  passed  by  advancing  neighbours,  that  some- 
times even  societies  of  men  should  recede  into  rudeness  and 
misery — all  these  are  phenomena  with  which  modern  history 
is  familiar.  In  judging  of  the  relation  of  the  lower  to  the 
higher  stages  of  civilization,  it  is  essential  to  gain  some  idea 
how  far  it  may  have  been  affected  by  such  degeneration. 
What  kind  of  evidence  can  direct  observation  and  history 
give  as  to  the  degradation  of  men  from  a  civilized  condition 
towards  that  of  savagery  ?  In  our  great  cities,  the  so-called 
'  dangerous  classes '  are  sunk  in  hideous  misery  and  de- 
pravity.    IS  we   have  to  strike  a  balance  between  the 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OP  CULTURE, 


43 


d,  would  be  of 
I,  it  would  not 
ig  loss  is  not 
a  record  to  be 
;o  the  transi- 
ivo-sided  fact, 
e-sided  argu- 
means  fatal, 
the  existence 
;ives  evidence 
er,  we  are  in 
of  culture  on 
th  to  support 
ustworthy  as 
rul  incidental 
logy  displays 
past ;  philo- 
iguage,  which 
vn  without  a 
ethnological 
he  ethnogra- 
e. 

recognized  as 
IS  of  national 
ould  decay  in 
e  should  lag 
8,  that  some- 
rudeness  and 
>dern  history 
lower  to  the 
in  some  idea 
egeneration. 
and  history 
ed  condition 
the  so-called 
ry  and  de- 
etween  the 


Papuans  of  New  Caledonia  and  the  communities  of  Euro- 
pean beggars  and  thieves,  we  may  sadly  acknowledge  that 
we  have  in  our  midst  something  worse  than  savagery.  But 
it  is  not  savagery ;  it  is  broken-down  civilization.  Nega- 
tively, the  inmates  of  a  Whitechapel  casual  ward  and  of  a 
Hottentot  kraal  agree  in  their  want  of  the  knowledge  and 
virtue  of  the  higher  culture.  But  positively,  their  mental  and 
moral  characteristics  are  utterly  different.  Thus,  the  savage 
life  is  essentially  devoted  to  gaining  subsistence  from  nature, 
which  is  just  what  the  proletarian  life  is  not.  Their  rela- 
tions to  civilized  life — the  one  of  independence,  the  other 
of  dependence — are  absolutely  opposite.  To  my  mind  the 
popular  phrases  about  '  city  savages '  and  '  street  Arabs ' 
seem  like  comparing  a  ruined  house  to  a  builder's  yard. 
It  is  more  to  the  purpose  to  notice  how  war  and  misrule, 
famine  and  pestilence,  have  again  and  again  devastated  coun- 
tries, reduced  their  population  to  miserable  remnants,  and 
lowered  their  level  of  civilization,  and  how  the  isolated  life 
of  wild  country  districts  seems  sometimes  tending  towards 
savagery.  So  far  as  we  know,  however,  none  of  these 
causes  have  ever  really  reproduced  a  savage  community. 
For  an  ancient  account  of  degeneration  under  adverse  cir- 
cumstances, Ovid's  mention  of  the  unhappy  colony  of  Tomi 
on  the  Black  Sea  is  a  case  in  point,  though  perhaps  not 
to  be  taken  too  literally.  Among  its  mixed  Greek  and 
barbaric  population,  harassed  and  carried  off  into  slavery  by 
the  Sarmacian  horsemen,  much  as  the  Persians  of  to-day  are 
by  the  Turkomans,  the  poet  describes  the  neglect  of  the 
gardener's  craft,  the  decay  of  textile  arts,  the  barbaric 
clothing  of  hides. 

'  Nee  tamen  hsec  loca  sunt  uUo  pretiosa  metallo  : 

Hostis  ab  agricola  vix  sinit  ilia  fodi. 
Purpura  sa^pe  tuos  fulgens  praetexit  amictus : 

Sed  non  Sarmatico  tingitur  ilia  mari. 
Vellera  dura  ferunt  pecudes,  et  Palladia  uti 

Arte  Tomitanae  non  didicere  nurus. 
Femina  pro  lana  Cerialia  munera  frangit, 

Supp08itoque  gravem  vertice  portat  aquani. 


n 


IP 


44  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OP  CULTURE. 

Non  hie  pampineis  amicitur  vitibus  ulmus: 
Nulla  premunt  ramos  pondere  poma  suo. 

Tristia  deformes  pariunt  absinthia  campi, 
Terraque  de  fructu  quam  sit  amara  docet.' ' 

Cases  of  exceptionally  low  civilization  in  Europe  may 
perhaps  be  sometimes  accounted  for  by  degeneration  of  this 
kind.  But  they  seem  more  often  the  relics  of  ancient  un- 
changed barbarism.  The  evidence  from  wild  parts  of 
Ireland  two  or  three  centuries  ago  is  interesting  from  this 
point  of  view.  Acts  of  Parliament  were  passed  against  the 
inveterate  habits  of  fastening  ploughs  to  the  horses'  tails, 
and  of  burning  oats  from  the  straw  to  save  the  trouble  of 
threshing.  In  the  18th  century  Ireland  could  still  be  thus 
described  in  satire : — 

'The  Western  isle  renowned  for  bogs, 
For  tories  and  for  great  wolf-dogs, 
For  drawing  hobbies  by  the  tails, 
And  threshing  corn  with  fiery  flails.'  ^ 

Fynes  Moryson's  description  of  the  wild  or  '  meere  '  Irish 
about  1600,  is  amazing.  The  very  lords  of  them,  he  says, 
dwelt  in  poor  clay  houses,  or  cabins  of  boughs  covered  with 
turf.  In  many  parts  men  as  well  as  women  had  in  very 
winter  time  but  a  linen  rag  about  the  loins  and  a  woollen 
mantle  on  their  bodies,  so  that  it  would  turn  a  man's 
stomach  to  see  an  old  woman  in  the  morning  before  break- 
fast. He  notices  their  habit  of  burning  oats  from  the 
straw,  and  making  cakes  thereof.  They  had  no  tables,  but 
set  their  meat  on  a  bundle  of  grass.  They  feasted  on  fallen 
horses,  and  seethed  pieces  of  beef  and  pork  with  the  un- 
washed entrails  of  beasts  in  a  hollow  tree,  lapped  in  a  raw 
cow's  hide,  and  so  set  over  the  tire,  and  they  drank  milk 
warmed  with  a  stone  first  cast  into  the   fire.^    Another 


'it  " 

4 


'  Ovid.  Ex  Ponto,  iii.  8  ;  see  Grote,  •  History  of  Greece,'  vol.  xii.  p.  641. 

''  W.  C.  Taylor,  '  Nat.  Hist,  of  Society,'  vol.  i.  p.  202. 

^  P'ynes  Moryson,  '  Itinerary  ;  *  London,  1617,  part  iii.  p.  162,  &c.  ;  J. 
Evans  in  '  ArcliBBologia,'  vol.  xli.  See  description  of  hide-boiling,  &c., 
among  the  wild  Irish,  about  1550,  in  Andrew  Boorde,  ♦  Introduction  of 
Knowledge,'  ed.  by  F.  J.  Furnivall,  Early  Engl'  h  Text  Soo.  1870. "^ 


11;-    '' 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  CULTURE. 


45 


Europe  may 
cation  of  this 
'  ancient  un- 
Id  parts  of 
Ing  from  this 
i  against  the 
horses'  tails, 
e  trouble  of 
still  be  thus 


meere '  Irish 
em,  he  says, 
overed  with 
had  in  very 
id  a  woollen 
rn  a  raan's 
efore  break- 
from  the 
3  tables,  but 
ed  on  fallen 
i^ith  the  un- 
led  in  a  raw 
drank  milk 
^    Another 

A.  xii.  p.  641. 

162,  &c.  ;  J. 
e-boiling,  &c.. 
ntroduction  of 
1870.  ■ 


district  remarkable  for  a  barbaric  simplicity  of  life  is  the 
Hebrides.  Till  of  late  years,  there  were  to  be  found  there 
in  actual  ube  earthen  vessels,  unglazed  and  made  by  hand 
without  the  potter's  wheel,  which  might  pass  in  a  museum 
as  indifferent  specimens  of  savage  manufacture.  These 
'craggans'  are  still  made  by  an  old  woman  at  Barvas  for 
sale  as  curiosities.  Such  a  modem  state  of  the  potter's 
art  in  the  Hebrides  fits  well  with  George  Buchanan's  state- 
ment in  the  16th  century  that  the  islanders  used  to  boil 
meat  in  the  beast's  own  paunch  or  hide.^  Early  in  the 
18th  century  Martin  mentions  as  prevalent  there  the  ancient 
way  of  dressing  corn  by  burning  it  dexterously  from  the  ear, 
which  he  notices  to  be  a  very  quick  process,  thence  called 
'graddan'  (Gaelic,  grad= quick).^  Thus  we  see  that  the 
habit  of  burning  out  the  grain,  for  which  the  '  meere  Irish  ' 
were  reproached,  was  really  the  keeping  up  of  an  old  Keltic 
art,  not  without  its  practical  use.  So  the  appearance  in 
modem  Keltic  districts  of  other  widespread  arts  of  the  lower 
culture — hide-boiling,  like  that  of  the  Scythians  in  Herodo- 
tus, and  stone-boiling,  like  that  of  the  Assinaboins  of  North 
America—  seems  to  fit  not  so  well  with  degradation  from  a 
high  as  with  survival  from  a  low  civilization.  The  Irish  and 
the  Hebrideans  had  been  for  ages  under  the  influence  of  com- 
paratively high  civilization,  which  nevertheless  may  have  left 
unaltered  much  of  the  older  and  ruder  habit  of  the  people. 

Instances  of  civilized  men  taking  to  a  wild  life  in  out- 
lying districts  of  the  world,  and  ceasing  to  obtain  or  want 
the  appliances  of  civilization,  give  more  distinct  evidence  of 
degradation.  In  connexion  with  this  state  of  things  takes 
place  the  nearest  known  approach  to  an  independent  dege- 
neration from  a  civilized  to  a  savage  state.  This  happens 
in  mixed  races,  whose  standard  of  civilization  may  be  more 
or  less  below  that  of  the  higher  race.    The  mutineers  of  the 


'  Buchanan,  '  Rerum  Scoticarum  Historia ; '  Edinburgh,  1528,  p.  7.  See 
■  Early  History  of  Mankind,'  2nd  ed.  p.  272. 

'^  Martin,  '  Description  of  Western  Islands,*  in  Pinkerton,  vol.  iii.  p. 
6.S9. 


Ili'^' 


lllllHl: 


46 


THE  DEVELOPMEN'i'    iW  OULTTJR?,. 


i 


ill 


Bounty,  with  their  Polynesian  wives,  ^ound  a  rude  but 
not  savage  community  on  Pitcairn's  Island.^  The  mixed 
Portuguese  and  native  races  of  the  East  Indies  and 
Africa  lead  a  life  below  the  European  standard,  but  not  a 
savage  life.'^  The  Gauchos  of  the  South  American  Pampas, 
a  mixed  European  and  Indian  race  of  equestrian  herdsmen, 
are  described  as  sitting  about  on  ox-skulls,  making  broth  in 
horns  with  hot  cinders  heaped  round,  living  on  meat  with- 
out vegetables,  and  altogether  leading  a  foul,  brutal, 
comfortless,  degenerate,  but  not  savage  life.^  One  step 
beyond  this  brings  us  to  the  cases  of  individual  civilized 
men  being  absorbed  in  savage  tribes  and  adopting  the 
savage  life,  on  which  they  exercise  little  influence  for  im- 
provement ;  the  childi'en  of  these  men  may  come  distinctly 
under  the  category  of  savages.  These  cases  of  mixed 
breeds,  however,  do  not  show  a  low  culture  actually 
produced  as  the  result  of  degeneration  from  a  high  one. 
Their  theory  is  that,  given  a  higher  and  a  lower  civilization 
existing  among  two  races,  a  mixed  race  between  the  two 
may  take  to  the  lower  or  an  intermediate  condition. 

Degeneration  probably  operates  even  more  actively  in 
the  lower  than  in  the  higher  culture.  Barbarous  nations 
and  savage  hordes,  with  their  less  knowledge  and  scantier 
appliances,  would  seem  peculiarly  exposed  to  degrading 
influences.  In  Africa,  for  instance,  there  seems  to  have 
been  in  modern  centuries  a  falling  off  in  culture,  probably 
due  in  a  considerable  degree  to  foreign  influence.  Mr. 
J.  L.  Wilson,  contrasting  the  16th  and  17th  century  ac- 
counts of  powerful  negro  kingdoms  in  West  Africa  with 
the  present  small  communities,  with  little  or  no  tradition  of 
their  forefathers'  more  extended  political  or'^anization, 
looks  especially  to  the  slave-trade  as  the  deteriorating  cause.* 

'  '  Mutiny  of  the  Bounty,'  &c. 

*  Wallace,  'Malay  Archipelago,'  vol.  i.  pp.  42,  471 ;  '^ol.  ii.  pp.  11,  48, 
48  ;  Latham,  '  Descr.  Eth.,'  vol.  ii.  pp.  492-5  ;  D.  and  C.  Livingstone, 
'  Exp.  to  Zambesi,'  p.  45. 

'  Southey,  '  History  of  Brazil,'  vol.  iii.  p.  422. 

*  J.  L.  Wilson,  '  W.  Afr.,'  p.  189. 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  CUT.TUKE. 


47 


a  rude  but 
The  mixed 
Indies  and 
i,  but  not  a 
can  Pampas, 
n  herdsmen, 
ing  broth  in 
L  meat  with- 
■oul,  brutal, 
'  One  step 
lal  civilized 
iopting  the 
nee  for  im- 
le  distinctly 
s  of  mixed 
ire  actually 
a  high  one. 
civilization 
len  the  two 
tion. 

actively  in 

)U3  nations 

ud  scantier 

degrading 

to  have 

probably 

snce.      Mr. 

entury  ac- 

■rica  with 

radition  of 

janization, 

ing  cause.* 


pp.  11,  48, 
Livingstone, 


In  South-east  Africa,  also,  a  comparatively  high  barbaric 
culture,  which  we  especially  associate  with  the  old  descrip- 
tions of  the  kingdom  of  Monomotapa,  seems  to  have  fallen 
away,  and  the  remarkable  ruins  of  buildings  of  hewn  stone 
fitted  without  mortar  indicate  a  former  civilization  above 
that  of  the  present  native  population.^  In  North  America, 
Father  Charlevoix  remarks  of  the  Iroquois  of  the  last 
century,  that  in  old  times  they  used  to  build  their  cabins 
better  than  other  nations,  and  be^iter  than  they  do  them- 
selves now;  they  carved  rude  figures  in  relief  on  them;  but 
since  in  various  expeditions  almost  all  their  villages  have 
been  burnt,  they  have  not  taken  the  trouble  to  restore  them 
in  their  old  condition.'^  The  degradation  of  the  Cheyenne 
Indians  is  matter  of  history.  Persecuted  by  their  enemies 
the  Sioux,  and  dislodged  at  last  even  from  their  foi*tified 
village,  the  heart  of  the  tribe  was  broken.  Their  numbers 
were  thinned,  they  no  longer  dared  to  establish  themselves 
in  a  permanent  abode,  they  gave  up  the  cultivation  of  the 
soil,  and  became  a  tribe  of  wandering  hunters,  with  horses 
for  their  only  valuable  possession,  v/hich  every  year  tbey 
bartered  for  a  supply  of  corn,  beans,  pumpkins,  and 
European  merchandise,  and  then  retur-r'^d  into  the  heart 
of  the  prairies.^  When  in  the  Kocky  Mountains,  Lord 
Milton  and  Dr.  Cheadle  came  upon  an  outlying  fragment 
of  the  Shushwap  race,  without  horses  or  doga,  sheltering 
themselves  under  rude  temporary  slants  of  bark  or  matting, 
falling  year  by  year  into  lower  misery,  and  rapidly  dying 
out ;  this  is  another  example  of  the  degeneration  which 
no  doubt  has  lowered  or  destroyed  many  a  savage  people.* 
There  are  tribes  who  are  the  very  outcasts  of  savage  life. 
There  is  reason  to  look  upon  the  miserable  Digger  Indians 
of  North  America  and  the  Bushmen  of  South  AMca  as 

'  Waitz,  'Anthropologie,'  vol.  ii.  p.  859,  see  '  1  ;  Du  Chaillu,  '  Ashango- 
land,'  p.  116. 

'  Charlevoix,  '  Nouvrlle  France,'  vol.  vi.  p.  51. 

^  Irving,  *  Astoria,'  vol.  ii.  ch.  v. 

*  Milton  and  Cheadle, '  North  West  Passage  by  Land,'  p.  241 ;  Waitz, 
vol.  iii.  pp.  74-6. 


48 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  CULTURE. 


I'll' 

l! 


the  persecuted  remnautB  of  tribes  who  have  seen  happier 
days.^  The  traditions  of  the  lower  races  of  their  ances- 
tors' better  life  may  sometimes  be  real  recollections  of  a 
not  far  distant  past.  The  Algonquin  Indians  look  back 
to  old  days  as  '.o  a  golden  age  when  life  was  better  than 
now,  when  they  had  better  laws  and  leaders^  and  manners 
less  rude.''  And  indeed,  knowing  what  we  do  of  their 
history,  we  may  admit  that  they  have  cause  to  remember 
in  misery  happiness  gone  by.  Well,  too,  might  the  rude 
Kamchadal  declare  that  the  world  is  growing  worse  and 
worse,  that  men  are  becoming  fewer  and  viler,  and  food 
scarcer,  for  the  hunter,  and  the  bear,  and  the  reindeer  are 
hurrying  away  from  here  to  the  happier  life  in  the  regions 
below.^  It  would  be  a  valuable  contribution  to  the  study 
of  civilization  to  have  the  action  of  decline  and  fall  inves- 
tigated on  a  wider  and  more  exact  basis  of  evidence  than 
has  yet  been  attempted.  The  cases  here  stated  are  prob- 
ably but  part  of  a  long  series  which  Tciight  be  brought 
forward  to  prove  degeneration  in  culture  .0  have  been,  by 
no  means  indeed  the  primary  cause  of  the  existence  of 
barbarism  and  savagery  in  the  world,  but  a  secondary 
action  largely  and  deeply  aflfecting  the  general  develop- 
ment of  civilization.  It  may  perhaps  give  no  unfair  idea 
to  compare  degeneration  of  culture,  both  in  its  kind  of 
operation  and  in  its  immense  extent,  to  denudation  in  the 
geological  history  of  the  earth. 

In  judging  of  the  relations  between  savage  and  civilized 
life,  something  may  be  learnt  by  glancing  over  the  divisions 
of  the  human  race.  For  this  end  the  classification  by 
families  of  languages  may  be  conveniently  used,  if  checked 
by  the  evidence  of  bodily  characteristics.  No  doubt  speech 
by  itseK  is  an  insufficient  guide  in  tracing  national  descent, 
as  witness  the  extreme  cases  of  Jews  in  England,  and  three- 
parts  negro  races  in  the  West  Indies,  nevertheless  speaking 

^  '  Early  History  of  Mankind,'  p.  187. 
"  Schoolcraft,  '  Algic  Res.,'  vol.  i.  p.  50. 
3  Steller,  '  Kamtschatka,'  p.  272. 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  CULTUBB. 


49 


m  happier 
leir  ances- 
tions  of  a 
look  back 
)etteT  than 
d  manners 

0  of  their 
remember 

t  the  rude 
worse  and 
,  and  food 
jindeer  are 
the  regions 
)  the  study- 
fall  inves- 
dence  than 

1  are  prob- 
be  brought 
ve  been,  by 
sistence  of 

secondary 
il  deveiop- 

nfair  i  Jea 
ts  kind  of 
tion  in  the 

d  civilized 

le  divisions 

ication  by 

if  checked 

ubt  speech 

lal  descent, 

and  three- 

!S  speaking 


; 


English  as  their  mother-tongue.  Still,  under  ordinary  cir- 
cumstances,  connexion  of  speech  does  indicate  more  or  less 
connexiv/ii  of  ancestral  race.  As  a  guide  in  tracing  the 
history  of  civilization,  language  gives  still  better  evidence, 
for  common  language  to  a  great  extent  involves  common 
culture.  The  race  dominant  enough  to  maintain  or  impose 
its  ^.anguage,  usually  more  or  less  maintains  or  imposes  its 
civilization  also.  Thus  the  common  descent  of  the  lan- 
guages of  Hindus,  Greeks,  and  Teutons  is  no  doubt  due  in 
great  measure  to  common  ancestry,  but  is  still  more  closely 
bound  up  with  a  common  social  and  intellectual  history, 
with  what  Professor  Max  Miiller  wei3  calls  their  '  spiritual 
relationship.'  The  wonderful  permanence  of  language 
often  enables  us  to  detect  among  remotely  ancient  and 
distant  tribes  the  traces  of  connected  civilization.  How, 
on  such  grounds,  do  savage  and  civilized  tribes  appear 
to  stand  related,  within  the  various  groups  of  mankind 
connected  historically  by  the  possession  of  kindred 
languages  ? 

The  Semitic  family,  which  represents  one  of  the  oldest 
known  civilizations  of  the  world,  includes  Arabs,  Jews, 
Phoenicians,  Syrians,  &c.,  and  has  an  earlier  as  well  as  a 
later  connexion  in  North  Africa.  This  family  takes  in  some 
rude  tribes,  but  none  which  would  be  classed  as  savages. 
The  Aryan  family  has  existed  in  Asia  and  Europe  certainly 
for  several  thousand  years,  and  there  are  well-known  and 
well-marked  traces  of  its  early  barbaric  condition,  which  has 
perhaps  survived  with  least  change  among  secluded  tribes  in 
the  valleya  of  the  Hindu  Kush  and  Himalaya.  There  seems, 
again,  r  o  known  case  of  any  full  Aryan  tribe  having  become 
savage.  The  Gypsies  and  other  outcasts  are,  no  doubt, 
partly  Aryan  in  blood,  but  their  degraded  condition  is  not 
savagery.  In  India  there  are  tribes  Aryan  by  language, 
but  whose  physique  is  r.'-thor  of  indigenous  type,  and  whose 
ancestry  is  mF.inly  from  ii^digenous  stocks  with  more  or  less 
mixture  of  the  dominant  Hindu.  Some  tribes  coming 
under  this  category,  as  among  tht,  Bhils  and  Kulis  of  the 

VOL.  I.  E 


lili" 


si 


50 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OP  OULTUEB. 


Bombay  Presidency,  speak  dialects  which  are  Hindi  in 
vocabulary  at  least,  whether  or  not  in  grammatical  structure, 
and  yet  the  people  themselves  ai'e  lower  in  culture  than 
some  Hinduized  nations  who  have  retained  their  original 
Dravidian  speech,  the  Tamils  for  instance.  But  these  all 
appear  to  stand  at  higher  stages  of  civilization  than  any 
wild  forest  tribes  of  the  peninsula  who  can  be  reckoned  as 
nearly  savages ;  all  such  are  non- Aryan  both  in  blood  and 
speech.^  In  Ceylon,  however,  we  have  the  remprkable 
phenomenon  of  men  leading  a  savage  life  while  speaking  an 
Aryan  dialect.  This  is  the  wild  part  of  the  race  of  Veddas 
or  '  hunters,'  of  whom  a  remnant  still  inhabit  the  forest 
land.  These  people  are  dark-skinned  and  flat-nosed,  slight 
of  frame,  and  very  small  of  skull,  and  five  feet  is  an 
average  man's  height.  They  are  a  shy,  harmless,  simple 
people,  living  principally  by  hunting ;  they  lime  birds,  take 
fish  by  poisoning  the  water,  and  are  skilful  in  getting  wild 
honey ;  they  have  bows  with  iron-pointed  arrows,  which, 
with  their  hunting  dogs,  are  their  most  valuable  possessions. 
They  dwell  in  caves  or  bark  huts,  and  their  very  word  for  a 
house  is  Singhalese  for  a  hollow  tree  (rvikvlcC) ;  a  patch  of 
bark  was  formerly  their  dress,  but  now  a  bit  of  linen  hangs  to 
their  waist-cords  ;  their  planting  of  patches  of  ground  is  said 
to  be  rec^-  t.  They  count  on  their  fingers,  and  produce  fire 
with  the  simplest  kind  of  fire-drill  twirled  by  hand.  They 
are  most  truthful  and  honest.  Their  monogamy  and  conjugal 
fidelity  contrast  strongly  with  the  opposite  habits  of  the 
more  civilized  Singhalese.  A  remarkable  Vedda  marriage 
custom  sanctioned  a  man's  taking  his  younger  (not  elder) 
sister  as  his  wife ;  sister-marriage  existing  among  the  Sing- 
halese, but  being  confined  to  the  royal  family.  Mistaken 
statements  have  been  made  as  to  the  Veddas  having  no 
religion,  no  personal  names,  no  language.  Their  religion, 
in  fact,  corresponds  with  the  animism  of  the  ruder  tribes  of 
India ;  some  of  their  names  are  remarkable  as  being  Hindu, 

'  See  G.  Campbell, '  Ethnology  of  India,'  in  Journ.  As.  See.  Bengal,  1866. 
part  ii. 


Qindi  in 
structure, 
,ure  than 
•  original 

these  ail 
than  any 
skoned  as 
blood  and 
smexkable 
eaking  an 
of  Veddas 
the  forest 
aed,  slight 
eet  is  an 
SB,  simple 
^irds,  take 
tting  wild 
ws,  which, 
ossessions. 
(vord  for  a 
a  patch  of 
rx  hangs  to 
und  is  said 
•oduce  fire 
Qd.    They 
d  conjugal 
►its  of  the 
i  marriage 
[not  elder) 

the  Sing- 
Mistaken 

laving  no 
religion. 

r  tribes  of 

ng  Hindu, 

Bengal,  1866, 


r 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  CULTURE. 


51 


but  not  in  use  among  the  modern  Singhalese  ;  their  language 
is  a  Singhalese  dialect.  There  is  no  doubt  attaching  to  the 
usual  opinion  that  the  Veddas  are  in  the  main  descended 
from  the  '  yakkos '  or  demons  ;  i.  e.  from  the  indigenous 
tribes  of  the  island.  Legend  and  language  concur  to  make 
probable  an  admixture  of  Aryan  blood  accompanying  the 
adoption  of  Aryan  speech,  but  the  evidence  of  bodily 
characteristics  shows  the  Vedda  race  to  be  principally  of 
indigenous  pre- Aryan  type.^ 

The  Tatar  family  of  Northern  Asia  and  Europe  (Turanian, 
if  the  word  be  \ised  in  a  restricted  sense),  displays  evidence 
of  quite  a  different  kind.  This  wide-lying  group  of  tribes 
and  nations  has  members  nearly  or  quite  touching  the 
savage  level  in  ancient  and  even  modern  times,  such  as 
Ostyaks,  Tunguz,  Samoyeds,  Lapps,  while  more  or  less 
high  ranges  of  culture  are  represented  by  Mongols,  Turks, 
and  Hungarians.  Here,  however,  it  is  unquestionable  that 
the  rude  tribes  represent  the  earlier  condition  of  the  Tatar 
race  at  large,  from  which  its  more  mixed  and  civilized 
peoples,  mostly  by  adopting  the  foreign  culture  of  Buddhist, 
Moslem,  and  Christian  nations,  and  partly  by  internal 
development,  are  well  known  to  have  risen.  The  ethnology 
of  South- Eastern  Asia  is  somewhat  obscure  ;  but  if  we  may 
classify  under  one  heading  the  native  races  of  Siam,  Birma, 
&c.,  the  wilder  tribes  may  be  considex-ed  as  representing 
earlier  conditions,  for  the  higher  culture  of  this  region  is 
obviously  foreign,  especially  of  Buddhist  origin.  The  Malay 
race  is  also  remarkable  for  the  range  of  civilization  repre- 
sented by  tribes  classed  as  belonging  to  it.  If  the  wild 
tribes  of  the  Malayan  peninsula  and  Borneo  be  compared 
with  the  semi-civilized  nations  of  Java  and  Sumatra,  it 
appears  that  part  of  the  race  survives  to  represent  an  early 

'  J.  Bailey,  '  Veddahs,'  in  Tr.  Eth.  Soc,  vol.  ii.  p.  273  ;  see  vol.  iii.  p. 
70  ;  Knox,  '  Historical  Relation  of  Ceylon.'  London,  1681,  part  iii.  chap.  i. 
See  A.  Thomson,  '  Osteology  of  the  Veddas,'  in  Journ.  Anthrop.  Inst.  1889, 
vol.  xix.  p.  125  ;  L.  deZoysa,  'Origin  of  Veddas.'  in  Journ.  Ceylon  Branch 
Koyal  Asiatic  Soc,  vol.  vii.;  B.  F.  Hartshorne  in  Fortnightly  Kev.,  Mar.1876. 
[Note  to  3rd  edition.] 

E  2 


i 


52 


THE   DEVELOPMENT  OP  CULTURE. 


I.  'I 


h 


l:'l!: 


:f  ?   i! 


liil 

iMIl 


savage  state,  while  part  is  found  in  possession  of  a  civiliza- 
tion which  the  first  glance  shows  to  have  been  mostly 
borrowed  from  Hindu  and  Moslem  sources.  Some  forest 
tribes  of  the  peninsula  seem  to  be  representatives  of  the 
Malay  race  at  a  very  low  level  of  culture,  how  far  original 
and  how  far  degraded  it  is  not  easy  to  say.  Among  them 
the  very  rude  Orang  Sabimba,  who  have  no  agriculture  and 
no  boats,  give  a  remarkable  account  of  themselves,  that 
they  are  descendants  of  shipwrecked  Malays  from  the  Bugis 
country,  but  were  so  harassed  by  pirates  that  they  gave  up 
civilization  and  cultivation,  and  vowed  not  to  eat  fowls, 
which  betrayed  them  by  their  crowing.  So  they  plant 
nothing,  but  eat  wild  fruit  and  vegetables,  and  all  animals 
but  the  fowl.  This,  if  at  all  founded  on  fact,  is  an  interesting 
case  of  degeneration.  But  savages  usually  invent  myths  to 
account  for  peculiar  habits,  as  where,  in  the  same  district, 
the  Biduanda  Kallang  account  for  their  not  cultivating  the 
ground  by  the  story  that  their  ancestors  vowed  not  to  make 
plantations.  Another  rude  people  of  the  Malay  peninsula 
are  the  Jakuns,  a  simple,  kindly  race,  among  whom  some 
trace  their  pedigree  to  a  pair  of  white  monkeys,  while  others 
declare  that  they  are  descendants  of  white  men  ;  and  indeed 
there  is  some  ground  for  supposing  these  latter  to  be  really 
of  mixed  race,  for  they  use  a  few  Portuguese  words,  and  a  re- 
port exists  of  some  refugees  having  settled  up  the  country.^ 
The  Polynesians,  Papuans,  and  Australians  represent  grades 
of  savagery  spread  each  over  its  own  vast  area  in  a  com- 
paratively homogeneous  way.  Lastly,  the  relations  of 
savagery  to  higher  conditions  are  remarkable,  but  obscure, 
on  the  American  continents.  There  are  several  great 
linguistic  families  whose  members  were  discovered  in  a 
savage  state  throughout :  such  are  the  Esquimaux,  Algon- 
quin, and  Guarani  groups.  On  the  other  hand  there  were 
three  apparently  unconnected  districts  of  semi-civilization 
reaching  a  high  barbaric  level,  viz.,  in  Mexico  and  Central 
America,  Bogota,  and  Peru.  Between  these  higher  and 
*  Journ.  Ind.  Archip.,  vol.  i.  pp.  296-9  ;  vol.  ii.  p.  237. 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OP  CULTURE. 


68 


civiliza- 
1  mostly 
ne  forest 
OS  of  the 
r  original 
ong  them 
Iture  and 
ives,  that 
the  Bugis 
J  gave  up 
jat  fowls, 
ley  plant 
1  animals 
ateresting 
myths  to 
a  district, 
rating  the 
t  to  make 
peninsula 
lom  some 
lile  others 
nd  indeed 
be  really 
,  and  a  re- 
country.^ 
int  grades 
n  a  com- 
ations   of 
t  obscure, 
ral   great 
ired  in  a 
X,  Algon- 
lere  were 
vilization 
d  Central 
gher  and 


lower  conditions  were  races  at  the  level  of  the  Natchez  of 
Louisiana  and  the  Apalaches  of  Florida.  Linguistic  con- 
nexion is  not  unknown  between  the  more  advanced  peoples 
and  the  lower  races  around  them.*  But  definite  evidence 
showing  the  higher  culture  to  have  arisen  from  the  lower, 
or  the  lower  to  have  fallen  from  the  higher,  is  scarcely  forth- 
coming.    Both  operations  may  in  degree  have  happened. 

It  is  apparent,  from  such  general  inspection  of  this 
ethnological  problem,  that  it  would  repay  a  far  closer  study 
than  it  has  as  yet  received.  As  the  evidence  stands  at 
present,  it  appears  that  wher  in  any  race  some  branches 
much  excel  the  rest  in  culture,  this  more  often  happens 
by  elevation  than  by  subsidence.  But  this  elevation  is 
much  more  apt  to  be  produced  by  foreign  than  by  native 
action.  Civilizati'^n  is  a  plant  much  oftener  propagated 
than  developed.  As  regards  the  lower  races,  this  accords 
with  the  results  of  European  intercourse  with  savage  tribes 
during  the  last  three  or  four  centuries ;  so  far  as  these 
tribes  have  survived  the  process,  they  have  assimilated  more 
or  less  of  European  culture  and  risen  towards  the  Euro- 
pean level,  as  in  Polynesia,  South  Africa,  South  America. 
Another  importart  point  becomes  manifest  from  this 
ethnological  survey.  The  fact  that,  during  so  many  thou- 
sand years  of  known  existence,  neither  the  Aryan  nor  the 
Semitic  race  appears  to  have  thrown  off  any  direct  savagi 
offshoot,  tells,  with  some  force,  against  the  probability 
of  degradation  to  the  savage  level  ever  happening  from 
high-level  civilization. 

With  regard  to  the  opinions  of  older  writers  on  early 
civilization,  whether  progressionists  or  degenerationists,  it 
must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  evidence  at  their  disposal 

'  For  the  connexion  between  the  Aztec  language  and  the  Sonoran 
family  extending  N.  W.  toward  the  sources  of  the  Missouri,  see  Busch- 
mann,  '  Spuren  der  Aztekischen  Spracho  im  NOrdlichen  Mexico,'  &c.,  in 
Abh.  der  Akad.  der  Wissensch.  1854  ;  Berlin,  18.'9  ;  also  Tr.  Eth.  Soc ,  vol. 
ii.  p.  130.  For  the  connexion  between  the  Natchez  and  Maya  languages, 
see  Daniel  G.  Brinton,  in  'American  Historical  Magazine,' 1867,  vol.  i. 
p.  16  ;  and  '  Myths  of  the  New  World,'  p.  28. 


54 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  CULTURE. 


fell  far  short  of  ovon  the  miBerahly  imperfect  data  now 
accesBiblo.  Criticizing  an  IFth  century  ethnologint  is  like 
criticizing  an  18th  century  geologist.  The  older  writer  may 
have  been  far  abler  than  hie  modern  critic,  but  he  had  not 
tlie  same  materials.  Especially  ho  wanted  the  guidance  of 
Prehistoric  Archseology,  a  department  of  research  only 
established  on  a  scientific  footing  within  the  last  few  years. 
It  is  e;  itial  to  gain  a  clear  view  of  the  bearing  of  this 
newer  kuowledge  on  the  old  problem. 

Chronology,  though  regarding  as  more  or  less  fictitious 
the  immense  dynastic  schemes  of  the  Egyptians,  Hindus, 
and  Chinese,  passing  as  they  do  into  mere  ciphering-book 
sums  with  >  ears  for  units,  nevertheless  admits  that  existing 
monuments  carry  back  the  traces  of  comparatively  high 
civilization  to  a  distance  of  above  five  thousand  years.  By 
piecing  together  Eastern  and  Western  documentary  evidence, 
it  seemrt  that  the  great  religious  divisions  of  the  Aryan  race, 
to  which  modern  Erahmaniwrn,  Zarathu8trism,and  Buddhism 
are  due,  belong  to  a  period  of  remotely  ancient  history. 
Even  if  we  cannot  hold,  with  Professor  Max  Mxiller, 
in  the  preface  to  his  translation  of  the  '  Rig  Veda,'  that 
this  collection  of  Aryan  hymns '  will  take  and  maintain  for 
ever  its  position  as  the  most  ancient  of  books  in  the  library 
of  mankind,'  and  if  we  do  not  admit  the  stringency  of 
his  reckonings  of  its  date  in  centuries  B.C.,  yet  we  must 
grant  that  he  shows  cause  to  refer  its  composition  to  a  very 
ancient  period,  where  it  then  proves  that  a  comparatively 
high  barbaric  culture  already  existed.  The  linguistic  argu- 
ment for  the  remotely  ancient  common  origin  of  the  Indo- 
European  nations,  in  a  degree  as  to  their  bodily  descent, 
and  in  a  greater  degree  as  to  their  civilization,  tends  toward 
the  same  result.  So  it  is  again  with  Egypt.  The  calcula- 
tions of  Egyptian  dynasties  in  thousands  of  years,  how- 
ever disputable  in  detail,  are  based  on  facts  which  at 
any  rate  authorize  the  reception  of  a  long  chronology. 
To  go  no  further  than  the  identification  of  two  or  three 
Egyptian    names   mentioned    in    Biblical    and    Classical 


THE  DEVELOPMKNT  OF  CULTURE. 


65 


data  now 
giHt  is  like 
vriter  may 
e  had  nut 
uidance  of 
(arch   only 

few  years, 
ng  of  this 

9  RotitiouB 
18,  Hindus, 
ering-book 
at  existing 
ively  high 
years.    By 
y  evidence, 
Vryan  race, 
[  Buddhism 
it  history. 
IX    MuUer, 
/"eda,'  that 
aintain  for 
the  library 
ingency  of 
we  must 
1  to  a  very 
paratively 
istic  argu- 
the  Indo- 
ly  descent, 
ids  toward 
le  calcula- 
ears,  how- 
which  at 
ironology. 
o  or  three 
Classical 


history,  wo  gain  a  strong  impression  of  remote  antiquity. 
Such  are  the  names  of  Shishank  ;  of  the  rsammiticlios  line, 
whose  obelisks  are  to  bo  seen  in  Rome  ;  of  Tirhakah,  King 
of  Ethiopia,  whose  nurse's  coffin  is  in  the  B'lorenco  Museum  ; 
of  the  city  of  Rameses,  plainly  connected  with  that  great 
Ramesside  line  which  Egyptologists  call  the  19th  Dynasty. 
Here,  before  classic  culture  had  arisen,  the  culture  of  Egypt 
culminated,  and  behind  this  time  lies  the  somewhat  less 
advanced  age  of  the  Pyramid  kings,  and  behind  this  again 
the  indefinite  lapse  of  ages  which  such  a  civilization  required 
for  its  production.  Again,  though  no  part  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament can  satisfactorily  prove  for  itself  an  antiquity  of 
composition  approaching  that  of  tV  i  earliest  Egyptian 
hieroglyphic  inscriptions,  yet  all  criii;jimust  admit  that  the 
older  of  the  historical  books  p'lve  on  the  one  liand  contem- 
porary documents  showinf'  l-o  isiderable  culture  in  the 
Semitic  world  at  a  date  wK.ch  in  comparison  with  classic 
history  is  ancient,  while  on  the  other  hand  they  afford 
evidence  by  way  of  chronicle,  carrying  back  ages  farther  the 
record  of  a  somewhat  advanced  barbaric  civilization.  Now 
if  the  development-theory  is  to  account  for  phenomena  such 
as  these,  its  chronological  demand  must  be  no  small  one, 
and  the  more  so  when  it  is  admitted  that  in  the  lower  ranges 
of  culture  progress  would  be  extremely  slow  in  comparison 
with  that  which  experience  shows  among  nations  already  far 
advanced.  On  these  conditions  of  the  first  appearance  of 
the  middle  ci'-iJ'  ition  being  thrown  back  to  distant 
antiquity,  and  ot  slow  development  being  required  to 
perform  its  heavy  task  in  ages  still  more  remote,  Prehistoric 
Archaeology  cheerfully  takes  up  the  problem.  And,  indeed, 
far  from  being  dismayed  by  the  vastness  of  the  period 
required  on  the  narrowest  computation,  the  prehistoric 
archseologist  shows  even  too  much  disposition  to  revel  in 
calculations  of  thousands  of  years,  as  a  financier  does  in 
reckonings  of  thousands  of  pounds,  in  a  liberal  and  maybe 
somewhat  reckless  way. 

Prehistoric  Archaeology  is  fully  alive  to  facts  which  may 


m^ 


\u 


56 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OP  CULTUEE. 


bear  on  degeneration  in  culture.  Such  are  the  colossal 
human  figures  of  hewn  stone  in  Easter  Island,  which  mcy 
possibly  have  been  shaped  by  the  ancestors  of  the  existing 
islanders,  whose  present  resources,  however,  are  quite  un- 
equal to  the  execution  of  such  gigantic  works.^  A  much 
more  important  case  is  that  of  the  former  inhabitants  of  the 
Mississippi  Valley.  In  districts  where  the  native  tribes 
known  in  modern  times  rank  as  savages,  there  formerly 
dwelt  a  race  whom  ethnologists  call  the  Mound-Builders, 
from  the  amazing  extent  of  their  mounds  and  enclosures, 
of  which  there  is  a  single  group  occupying  an  area  of  four 
square  miles.  The  regularity  of  the  squares  and  circles, 
and  the  repetition  of  enclosures  similar  in  dimensions, 
raise  interesting  questions  as  to  the  methods  by  which 
these  were  planned  out.  To  have  constructed  such  works 
the  Mound-Builders  must  have  been  a  numerous  population, 
mainly  subsisting  by  agriculture,  and  indeed  vestiges  of 
their  ancient  tillage  ai"e  still  to  be  found.  They  did  not 
however  in  industrial  arts  approach  the  level  of  Mexico. 
For  instance,  their  use  of  native  copper,  hammered  into 
shape  for  cutting  instruments,  is  similar  to  that  of  some 
of  the  savage  tribes  farther  north.  On  the  whole,  judging 
by  their  earthworks,  fields,  pottery,  stone  implements, 
and  other  remains,  they  seem  to  have  belonged  to  those 
high  savage  or  barbaric  tribes  of  the  Southern  States,  of 
whom  the  Creeks  and  Cherokees,  as  described  by  Bartram, 
may  be  taken  as  typical.^  If  any  of  the  wild  roving 
hunting  tribes  now  found  living  near  the  huge  earthworks 
of  the  Mound-Builders  are  the  descendants  of  this  somewhat 
advanced  race,  then  a  very  considerable  degradation  has 
taken  place.  The  question  is  an  open  one.  The  explanation 
of  the  traces  of  tillage  may  perhaps  in  this  case  be  like 

'  J.  H.  Lamprey,  in  Trans,  of  Prehistoric  Congress,  Norwich,  1868,  p.  60  ; 
J.  Linton  Palmer,  in  Journ.  Eth.  See,  vol.  i.  1869. 

'  Squier  and  Davis,  '  Mon.  of  Mississippi  Valley,'  &c.,  in  Smithsonian 
Contr.,  vol.  i.  1848  ;  Lubbock,  '  Prehistoric  Times,'  chap.  vii.  ;  Waitz, 
'  Anthropologie,' vol.  iii.  p.  72;  Bartram,  'Creek  and  Cherokee  Ind.,'  in 
Tr.  Amer.  Ethnol.  Soc,  vol.  iii.  part  i.  See  Petrie,  '  Inductive  Metrology,' 
1877,  p.  122.    [Note  to  3rd  ed.] 


le  colossal 
vhich  may 
e  existing 
quite  un- 
A  much 
ants  of  the 
tive  tribes 
)  formerly 
i-Builders, 
enclosures, 
'ea  of  four 
nd  circles, 
imensions, 
by  which 
luch  works 
)opulation, 
v^estiges  of 
)y  did  not 
of  Mexico, 
nered  into 
it  of  some 
le,  judging 
plements, 
to  those 
States,  of 
Bartram, 
d  roving 
arth  works 
somewhat 
ation  has 
planation 
se  be  like 

1868,  p,  60 ; 

Smithsonian 
vii.  ;  Waitz, 
kee  Ind.,'  in 
Metrology,' 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OP  CULTURE. 


57 


that    of  remains  of    old  cultivation-terraces  in   Borneo, 
the  work  of  Chinese  colonists  whose  descendants  have 
mostly  been  merged  in  the  mass  of  the  population  and 
follow  the  native  habits.^      On  the  other  hand,  the  evi- 
dence of  locality  may  be  misleading  as  to  race.     A  traveller 
in  Greenland,  coming  on  the  ruined  stone  buildings  at 
Kakortok,  would  not  argue  justly   that  the  Esquimaux 
are  degenerate  descendants  of  ancestors  capable  of  such 
architecture,  for  in  fact  these  are  the  remains  of  a  church 
and  baptistery  built  by  the  ancient  Scandinavian  settlers.^ 
On  tht    whole  it  is  remarkable  how  little  of  colourable 
evidence  of  degeneration  has  been  disclosed  by  archaeology. 
Its  negative  evidence  tells  strongly  the  other  way.     As  an 
instance  may  be  quoted  Sir  John  Lubbock's  argument  against 
the  idea  that  tribes  now  ignorant  of  metallurgy  and  pottery 
formerly  possessed  but  have  since  lost  these  arts.     '  We 
may  also  assert,  on  a  general  proposition,  that  no  weapons 
or  instruments  of  metal  have  ever  been  found  in  any  country 
inhabited  by  savages  wholly  ignorant  of  metallurgy.   A  still 
stronger  case  is  afforded  by  pottery.    Pottery  is  not  easily 
destroyed ;  when  known  at  all  it  is  always  abundant,  and  it 
possesses  two  qualities,  namely,  those  of  being  easy  to  break, 
and  yet  difficult  to  destroy,  which  render  it  very  valuable  in 
an  archaeological  point  of  view.     Moreover,  it  is  in  most 
cases  associated  with  burials.     It  is,  therefore,  a  very  signi- 
ficant fact,  that  no  fragment  of  pottery  has  ever  been  found 
in  Australia,  New  Zealand,  or  in  the  Polynesian  Islands.'  ^ 
How  different  a  state  of  things  the  popular  degeneration- 
theory  would  lead  us  to  expect  is  pointedly  suggested  by 
Sir  Charles  Lyell's  sarcastic  sentences  in  his  '  Antiquity  of 
Man.'     Had  the  original  stock  of  mankind,  he  argues,  been 
really  endowed  with  superior  intellectual  powers  and  inspired 
knowledge,  while  possessing  the  same  improvable  nature  as 
their  posterity,  how  extreme  a  point  of  advancement  would 


'  St.  John,  '  Life  in  Forests  of  Far  East,'  vol.  ii.  p.  327. 

'  Rafn,  'Americas  Arctiske  Landes  Gamie  Geographic,'  pi.  vii., 

^  Lubbock,  in  '  Report  of  British  Aaaociation,  Dundee,  lb67,'  p. 


VIll. 


58 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  CULTURE. 


■*iV 


i!:l:i 


they  have  reached.  '  Instead  of  the  rudest  pottery  or  flint 
tools,  so  irregular  in  form  as  to  cause  the  unpractised  eye 
to  doubt  whether  they  afford  unmistakable  evidence  of 
design,  we  should  now  be  finding  sculptured  forms  surpass- 
ing in  beauty  the  master-pieces  of  Phidias  or  Praxiteles  ; 
lines  of  buried  railways  or  electric  telegraphs,  from  which 
the  best  engineers  of  our  day  might  gain  invaluable  hints ; 
astronomical  instruments  and  microscopes  of  more  advanced 
construction  than  any  known  in  Europe,  and  other  indica- 
tions of  perfection  in  the  arts  and  sciences,  such  as  the 
nineteenth  century  has  not  yet  witnessed.  Still  farther 
would  the  triumphs  of  inventive  genius  be  found  to  have 
been  carried,  when  the  later  deposits,  now  assigned  to  the 
ages  of  bronze  and  iron,  were  formed.  Vainly  should  we  be 
straining  our  imaginations  to  guess  the  possible  uses  and 
meaning  of  such  relics — machines,  perhaps,  for  navigating 
the  air  or  exploring  the  depths  of  the  ocean,  or  for  calcula- 
ting arithmetical  problems  beyond  the  wants  or  even  the 
conceptioD  of  living  mathematicians.'^ 

The  master-key  to  the  investigation  of  man's  primaeval 
condition  is  held  by  Prehistoric  Archaeology.  This  key  is 
the  evidence  of  the  Stone  Age,  proving  that  men  of  remotely 
ancient  ages  were  in  the  savage  state.  Ever  since  the  long- 
delayed  recognition  of  M.  Boucher  de  Perthes'  discoveries 
(1841  and  onward)  of  the  flint  implements  in  the  Drift 
gravels  of  the  Somme  Valley,  evidence  has  been  accumulating 
over  a  wide  European  area  to  show  that  the  ruder  Stone 
Age,  represented  by  implements  of  the  Paleolithic  or  Drift 
type,  prevailed  among  savage  tribes  of  the  Quaternary 
period,  the  contemporaries  of  the  mammoth  and  the  woolly 
rhinoceros,  in  ages  for  which  Geology  asserts  an  antiquity 
far  more  remote  than  History  can  avail  to  substantiate  for 
the  human  race.  Mr.  John  Frere  had  already  written  in 
1797  respecting  such  flint  instruments  discovered  at  Hoxne 
in  Suffolk.  '  The  situation  in  which  these  weapons  were 
found  may  tempt  us  to  refer  them  to  a  very  remote  period 

'  Lyell,  '  Antiquity  oi  Man,'  chap,  xix. 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  CULTURE. 


59 


y  or  flint 
tised  eye 
dence  of 
;  surpass- 
'axiteles  ; 
)in  which 
>le  hints; 
advanced 
3r  indica- 
;h  as  the 
11  farther 
i  to  have 
led  to  the 
uld  we  be 

uses  and 
avigating 
r  calcula- 

even  the 

primaeval 

lis  key  is 

remotely 

the  long- 

scoveries 

the  Drift 

mulating 

er  Stone 

or  Drift 

laternary 

le  woolly 

mtiquity 

itiate  for 

ritten  in 

it  Hoxne 

ons  were 

;e  period 


indeed,  even  beyond  that  of  the  present  world.' ^      The 
vast  lapse  of  time  through  which  the  history  of  London  has 
represented  the  history  of  human  civilization,  is  to  my  mind 
one  of  the  most  suggestive  facts  disclosed  by  archaeology. 
There  the  antiquary,  excavating  but   a  few  yards  deep, 
may   descend   from  the   debris   representing  our  modern 
life,  to  relics  of  the  art  and  science  of  the  Middle  Ages,  to 
signs  of  Norman,  Saxon,  Romano-British  times,  to  traces 
of  the  higher  Stone  Age.     And  on  his  way  from  Temple 
Bar  to  the  Great  Northern  Station  he  passes  near  the  spot 
('  opposite  to  black  Mary's,  near  Grayes  inn  lane ')  where 
a  drift  implement  of  black  flint  was  found  with  the  skeleton 
of  an  elephant  by  Mr.  Conyers,  about  a  century  and  a  half 
ago,  the  relics  side  by  side  of  the  London  mammoth  and 
the  London  savage.^    In  *he  gravel-beds  of  Europe,  the 
laterite  of  India,  and  other  more  superficial  localities,  where 
relics  of  the  Palaeolithic  Age  are  found,  what  principally 
testifies  to  man's  condition  is  the  extreme  rudeness  of  his 
stone  implements,  and  the  absence  of  even  «dge-gi*inding. 
The  natural  inference  that  this  indicates  a  low  savage  state 
is  confirmed  in  the  caves  of  Central  France.     There  a  race 
of  men,  who  have  left  indeed  really  artistic  portmits  of 
themselves  and  the   reindeer  and  mammoths  they  lived 
among,  seem,  as  may  be  judged  from  tht  reiaains  of  their 
weapons,  implements,  &c.,  to  have  led  a  life  somewhat  of 
Esquimaux  type,  but  lower  by  the  want  of  domesticated 
animals.      The   districts   where   implements  of  the  rude 
primitive  Drift  type  are  found  are  limited  in  extent.     It  is 
to  ages  later  in  time  and  more  advanced  i)i  development, 
that  the  Neolithic  or  Polished   Stone   Period   belonged, 
when  the   manufacture   of  stone   instruments   was  much 
improved,  and  grinding  and  polishing  were  generally  intro- 
duced.    During  the  long  period  of  prevalence  of  this  state 
of  things,  Man  appears  to  have  spread  almost  over  the  whole 

'  Frere,  in  '  ArchoDologia,'  1800. 

'^  J.  Evana,  in  '  Archseologia,'  1861 ;  Lubbock,  '  Prehistoric  Times,'  2nd 


60 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  CULTURE. 


m 


habitable  earth.  The  examination  of  district  after  district 
of  the  world  has  now  all  but  established  a  universal  rule 
that  the  Stone  Age  (bone  or  shell  being  the  oicasional 
substitutes  for  stone)  underlies  the  Metal  Age  eveiy  where. 
Even  the  districts  famed  in  history  as  seats  of  ancient 
civilization  show,  like  other  regions,  their  traces  of  a  yet 
more  archaic  Stone  Age.  Asia  Minor,  Egypt,  Palestine 
India,  China,  furnish  evidence  from  actual  specimens, 
historical  mentions,  and  survivals,  which  demonstrate  the 
former  prevalence  of  conditions  of  society  which  have  their 
analogues  among  modern  savage  tribep  ^  The  Duke  of 
Argyll,  in  his  '  Primeval  Man,'  while  admitting  the  Drift 
implements  as  having  been  the  ice  hatchets  and  rude  knives 
of  low  tribes  of  men  inhabiting  Europe  toward  the  end  of 
the  Glacial  Period,  concludes  thence  '  that  it  would  be  about 
as  safe  as  to  argue  from  these  implements  as  to  the  con- 
dition of  Man  at  that  time  in  the  countries  of  his  Primeval 
Home,  as  it  would  be  in  our  own  day  to  argue  from  the 
habits  and  arts  of  the  Eskimo  as  to  the  state  of  civilization 
in  London  or  in  Paris.'  ^  The  progress  of  Archaeology  for 
years  past,  however,  has  been  continually  cutting  away  the 
ground  on  which  such  an  argument  as  this  can  stand,  till 
now  it  is  all  but  utterly  driven  off  the  field.  Where  now  is 
the  district  of  the  earth  that  can  be  pointed  to  as  the 
'  Primeval  Home '  of  Man,  and  that  does  not  show  by  rude 
stone  implements  buried  in  its  soil  the  savage  condition 
of  its  former  inhabitants?  There  is  scarcely  a  known 
province  of  the  world  of  which  we  cannot  say  certainly 
savages  once  dwelt  here,  and  if  in  such  a  case  an  ethno- 
logist asserts  that  these  savages  were  the  descendants  or 
successors  of  a  civilized  nation,  the  burden  of  proof  lies  on 
him.  Again,  the  Bronze  Age  and  the  Iron  Age  belong  in 
great  measure  to  history,  but  their  relation  to  the  Stone 
Age  proves  the  soundness  of  the  judgmeziu  of  Lucretius, 
when,  attaching  experience  of  the  present  to  memory  and 

'  See  '  Early  History  of  Mankind,'  2nd.  ed.  chap.  viii. 
2  Argyll,  'Primeval  Man,'  p.  120. 


>r  district 
ersal  rule 
^'^.casiunal 
31  y  where, 
f  ancient 
of  a  yet 
Palestine 
pecimens, 
itrate  the 
lave  their 
Duke   of 
the  Drift 
de  knives 
le  end  of 
[  be  about 
the  con- 
Primeval 
from  the 
vilization 
ology  for 
away  the 
standj  till 
re  now  is 
10  as  the 
by  rude 
londition 
\.  known 
certainly 
m  ethno- 
dants  or 
of  lies  on 
»elong  in 
le  Stone 
lUcretiua, 
lory  and 


THE   DEVELOPMENT  OF   CUI  TL  RE.                            61 

inference  from  the  past,  he  propounded  what  is  now  a  tenet 

of  archaeology,  the  succession  of  the  Stone,  Bronze,  and  Iron 

Ages : 

'Arma  antiqua  manus  ungues  dentesque  fuerunt, 

Et  lapides,  et  item  silvarum  fragmina  rami 

Posterius  ferri  vis  est  serisque  reperta, 

Et  prior  seris  erat  quam  ferri  cognitus  usus.'  • 

Throughout  the  various  topics  of  Prehistoric  Archaeology, 
the  force  and  convergence  of  its  testimony  upon  the  develop- 
ment of  culture  are  overpowering.  The  relics  discovered  in 
gravel-beds,  caves,  shell-mounds,  terramares,  lake-dwellings, 
earthworks,  the  results  of  an  exploration  of  the  superficial 
soil  in  many  countries,  the  comparison  of  geological  evi- 
dence, of  historical  documents,  of  modern  savage  life, 
corroborate  and  explain  one  another.  The  megalithic 
structures,  menhirs,  cromlechs,  dolmens,  and  the  like,  only 
known  to  England,  France,  Algeria,  as  the  work  of  races  of 
the  mysterious  past,  have  been  kept  up  as  matters  of  modern 
construction  and  recognized  purpose  among  the  ruder  indi- 
genous tribes  of  India.  The  series  of  ancient  lake-settle- 
ments which  must  represent  so  many  centuries  of  successive 
population  fringing  the  shores  of  the  Swiss  lakes,  have  their 
surviving  representatives  among  rude  tribes  of  the  East 
Indies,  Africa,  and  So'ith  America.  Outlying  savages  are 
still  heaping  up  shell-mounds  like  those  of  far-past  Scandi- 
navian antiquity.  The  burial-mounds  still  to  be  seen  in 
civilized  countries  have  served  at  once  as  museums  of  early 
culture  and  as  proofs  of  its  savage  or  barbaric  type.  It  is 
triough,  without  entering  farther  here  into  subjects  fully 
discussed  in  m  lern  special  work-;,  o  claim  the  general 
support  given  to  the  development-ti  '^  ;ry  of  culture  by  Pre- 
historic Archaeology.  It  was  with  a  true  appreciation  of 
the  bearings  of  this  science  that  one  of  ";  founders,  the. 
venerable  Professor  Sven  Nilsson,  declared  in  1843  in  the 

*  Lucret.  De  Rerum  Natura.  v.  1281. 


\ 


62 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  CULTURE. 


1^1 


I?       '' 


S.I 


r ' 


Introduction  to  his  *  Primitive  Inhabitants  of  Scandinavia,' 
that  we  are  '  unable  properly  to  understand  the  significance 
of  the  antiquities  of  any  indivitbial  country  without  at  the 
Hame  time  cleujlj  rctvizing  the  id  i  that  they  are  the  frag- 
ments of  a  proi^resaivp.  err.  ,'s  of.  ti>  ilization,  and  that  the 
human  race  ha^.  always  been,  and  ;  ,iiil  is,  steadily  advancing 
in  civiliza''ion,'' 

Knquiry  iuto  the  origin  and  early  development  of  the 
material  arts,  as  juci^^ed  of  by  ''.oiTi[  aring  the  various  stages 
at  whici)  they  are  found  exi'jting,  leads  to  a  corresponding 
result.  Not  to  take  ihifi  f  rgument  up  in  its  full  range,  a 
few  typl'jal  details  may  at:  ve  to  show  its  general  character. 
Amongst  the  various  stages  of  the  arts,  it  is  only  a  minority 
which  show  of  themselves  by  mere  inspection  whether  they 
are  in  the  line  of  progress  or  of  decline.  Most  such  facts 
may  be  compared  to  an  Indian's  canoe,  stem  and  stern  alike, 
so  that  one  cannot  tell  by  looking  at  it  which  way  it  is  set 
to  go.  But  there  are  some  which,  like  our  own  boats, 
distinctly  point  in  the  direction  of  their  actual  course. 
Such  facts  are  pointers  in  the  study  of  civilization,  and  in 
every  branch  of  the  enquiry  should  be  sought  out.  A  good 
example  of  these  pointer-facts  is  recorded  by  Mr.  Wallace. 
In  Celebes,  where  the  bamboo  houses  are  apt  to  lean  with 
the  prevalent  west  wind,  the  natives  have  found  out  that  if 
they  fix  some  crooked  timbers  in  the  sides  of  the  house,  it 
will  not  fall.  They  choose  such  accordingly,  the  crookedest 
they  can  find,  but  they  do  not  know  tlie  rationale  of  the 
contrivance,  and  have  not  hit  on  the  idea  that  straight  poles 
fixed  slanting  would  have  the  same  effect  in  making  the 
structure  rigid.^  In  fact,  they  have  gone  halfway  toward 
inventing  what  builders  call  a  'strut,'  but  have  stopped 


'  See  Lyell,  '  Antiquity  of  Man,'  3rd  ed.  1863  ;  Lubbock,   '  Proliistflric 
Times,'  2nd  ed.  J  70  ;    'Trans,  of  Congress  of  Prehistoric   A'r'ieologj' ' 


(Norwich,  1868' 
Inhabitants  of ' 
logical  Memoir 
T.  R.  Jones)  ;  ' 
■'  Wai.,  . '    • 


-t  vens,  'Flint  Chips,  &c..'  1870;  Ni'?=     ,,  -Primitive 
,     tiaavia  '  (ed.  by  Lubbock,  1868) ;  Fu'     .ler,  '  Paloeonto- 
;  Lartet  and  Christy,  '  Reliquiae  AijUitanicoB  '  (cd.  by 
,  '  Lake  Dwellings '  (Tr.  and  Ed.  by  J.  E.  Lee),  &c.,  &c. 
:ian  Archipelago,'  vol.  i.  p.  357. 


:i.: 


THE   DEVELOPMENT   OF  CULTURE. 


68 


Ddinavia,' 
gnificance 
)ut  at  the 
the  frag- 
that  the 
idvancing 

nt  of  the 
ous  stages 
esponding 
I  range,  a 
character. 
,  minority 
3ther  they 
mch  facts 
tern  alike, 
.y  it  is  set 
jv^n  boats, 
il  course. 
)n,  and  in 
A  good 

Wallace, 
lean  with 
>ut  that  if 

house,  it 
rookedest 
of  the 
Lght  poles 
iking  the 
-y  toward 
stopped 

T'rohistoric 
ic'ifiology ' 
Primitive 
Palaeonto- 
ca5 '  (ed.  by 
)e),  &c.,  &c. 


short.  Now  the  mere  sight  of  such  a  house  would  show 
that  the  plan  is  not  a  remnant  of  higher  architecture,  but  a 
half-made  invention.  This  is  a  fact  in  the  line  of  progress, 
but  not  of  decline.  I  have  mentioned  elsewhere  a  number 
of  similar  cases ;  thus  the  adaptation  of  a  cord  to  the  fire- 
drill  is  obviously  an  improvement  on  the  simpler  instru- 
ment twirled  by  hand,  and  the  use  of  the  spindle  for 
making  thread  is  an  improvement  on  the  clumsier  art  of 
hand-twisting;'  but  to  reverse  this  position,  and  suppose  the 
hand-drill  to  have  come  into  use  by  leaving  off  the  use  of 
the  cord  of  the  cord-drill,  or  that  people  who  knew  the  use 
of  the  spindle  left  it  off  and  painfully  twisted  their  thread  by 
hand,  is  absurd.  Again,  the  appearance  of  an  art  in  a  par- 
ticular locality  where  it  is  hard  to  account  for  it  as  borrowed 
from  elsewhere,  and  especially  if  it  concerns  some  special 
native  product,  is  evidence  of  its  being  a  native  invention. 
Thus,  what  people  can  claim  the  invention  of  the  hammock, 
or  the  still  more  admirable  discovery  of  the  extraction  of 
the  wholesome  cassava  from  the  poisonous  manioc,  but  the 
natives  of  the  South  American  and  West  Indian  districts  to 
which  these  things  belong  ?  As  the  isolated  possession  of 
an  art  goes  to  prove  its  invention  where  it  is  found,  so  the 
absence  of  an  art  goes  to  prove  that  it  was  never  present. 
The  onus  proband!  is  on  the  other  side ;  if  anyone  thinks 
that  the  East  African's  ancestors  had  the  lamp  and  the 
potter's  wheel,  and  that  the  North  American  Indians  once 
possessed  the  art  of  making  beer  from  their  maize  like  the 
Mexicans,  but  that  these  arts  have  been  lost,  at  any  rate  let 
him  show  cause  for  such  an  opinion.  I  need  not,  perhaps,  go 
so  far  as  a  facetious  ethnological  friend  of  mine,  who  argues 
that  the  existence  of  savage  tribes  who  do  not  kiss  their 
women  is  a  proof  of  primaeval  barbarism,  for,  he  says,  if 
they  had  ever  known  the  practice  they  could  not  possibly 
have  forgotten  it.  Lastly  and  principally,  as  experience 
shows  us  that  arts  of  civilized  life  are  developed  through 
suf'-essive  stages  of  improvemer.t,  we  may  assume  that  the 
«  'Early  History  of  Mank-.ad,'  pp.  192,  243,  &c.,  &c. 


im^^ 


i>v 


1 11  i  i 

■hi    I  I 


',     i,  1 


ill 


J 


64 


THE   DEVELOPMENT  OP  CULTURE. 


early  development  of  even  savage  arts  came  to  pass  in  a 
similar  way,  and  thus,  finding  various  stages  of  an  art 
among  the  lower  races,  we  may  arrange  these  stages  in  a 
series  probably  representing  their  actual  sequence  in 
history.  If  any  art  can  be  traced  back  among  savage  tribes 
to  a  rudimentary  state  in  which  its  invention  does  not  seem 
beyond  their  intellectual  condition,  and  especially  if  it  may 
be  produced  by  imitating  nature  or  following  nature's  direct 
suggestion,  there  is  fair  reason  to  suppose  the  very  origin  of 
the  art  to  have  been  reached. 

Professor  Nilsson,  looking  at  the  remarkable  similarity 
of  the  hunting  and  fishing  instruments  of  the  lower  races  of 
mankind  considers  them  to  have  been  contrived  instinc- 
tively hy  a  sort  of  natural  necessity.  As  an  example  he  takes 
the  bow  and  arrow.^  The  instance  seems  an  unfortunate 
one,  in  the  face  of  the  fact  that  the  supposed  bow-and- 
arrow-making  instinct  fails  among  the  natives  of  Tasmania, 
to  whom  it  would  have  been  very  useful,  nor  have  the 
Australians  any  bow  of  their  own  invention.  Even  within 
the  Papuan  region,  the  bow  so  prevalent  in  New  Guinea 
is  absent  from  New  Caledonia  and  other  islands.  It 
seems  to  me  that  Di'-  Klemm,  in  his  dissertation  on 
Implemen+8  and  Weapons,  and  Colonel  Lane  Fox,  in 
his  lectures  on  Primitive  Warfare,  take  a  more  instructive 
line  in  tracing  the  early  development  of  arts,  not  to  a 
blind  instinct,  but  to  a  selection,  imitation,  and  gradual 
adaptation  and  improvement  of  objects  and  operations 
which  Nature,  the  instructor  of  primaeval  man,  sets  before 
him.  Thup  Klemm  traces  the  stages  bj'  which  progress 
appears  tc  have  been  made  from  the  rough  stick  to  the 
finished  r  near  or  club,  from  the  natural  sharp-edged  or 
rounded  stone  to  the  artistically  fashioned  celt,  spear-head, 
or  hammer.^  Lane  Fox  traces  connexion  through  the  various 
types  of  weapons,  pointing  out  how  a  form  once  arrived 
at  is  repeated  in  various  sizes,  like  the  spear-head  and 


'  Nilsson,  '  Pi-imitive  Inhi-bitfints  of  Scandinavia,'  p.  104. 

"  Klemm,  '  Allg.  Culturwistonschaft,'  part,  ii.,  W^erkzeuge  un'l 


.en. 


Ma 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OP  CULTURE. 


65 


pass  in  a 
)f  an  art 
ages  in  a 
uence  in 
age  tribes 
I  not  seem 
if  it  may 
re's  direct 
J  origin  of 

similarity 

er  races  of 

d  instinc- 

e  he  takes 

ifortunate 

bow-and- 

Tasmania, 

have  the 

ren  within 

iw  Guinea 

irnds.      It 

lation    on 

Fox,  in 

istructive 

not  to  a 

gradual 

perations 

ets  before 

progress 

ik  to  the 

edged  or 

ear-head, 

He  various 

arrived 

lead  and 


.  ui.en. 


arrow-point ;  how  in  rude  conditions  of  the  arts  the  same 
instrument  serves  different  purposes,  as  where  the  Fuegians 
use  their  arrow-heads  also  for  knives,  and  Kafirs  carve 
with  their  assagais,  till  separate  fonns  are  adopted  for 
special  purposes;  and  how  in  the  histc/y  of  the  striking, 
cutting,  and  piercing  instruments  used  by  mankind,  a 
continuity  may  be  traced,  which  indicates  a  gi-adual  pro- 
gressive development  from  the  rudest  beginnings  to  the 
most  advanced  improvements  of  modern  skill.  To  show 
how  "or  the  early  development  of  warlike  arts  may  have 
been  due  to  man's  imitative  faculty,  he  points  out  the 
analogies  in  methods  of  warfare  among  animals  and  men, 
classifying  as  defensive  appliances  hides,  solid  plates, 
jointed  plates,  scales  ;  as  offensive  weapons,  the  piercing, 
striking,  serrated,  poisoned  kinds,  &c. ;  and  under  the  head 
of  stratagems,  flight,  concealment,  leaders,  outposts,  war- 
cries,  and  so  forth.^ 

The  manufacture  of  stone  implements  is  now  almost 
perfectly  understood  by  archseo  ■  ogists.  The  processes  used 
by  modern  savages  have  been  observed  and  imitated.  Mr. 
John  Evans,  for  instance,  by  blows  t  '  j  a  pebble,  pressure 
with  a  piece  of  stag's  hovn,  sawing  WaoIi  a  flint-flake,  boring 
with  a  stick  and  sand,  and  grinding  on  a  stone  surface, 
succeeds  in  reproducing  all  but  the  finest  kinds  of  stone 
implements.^  On  thorough  knowledge  we  are  now  able  to 
refer  in  great  maasure  the  remarkable  similarities  of  the 
stone  scrapers,  flake-knives,  hatchets,  spear-  and  arrow- 
heads, &c.,  as  found  in  distant  times  and  regions,  to  the 
similarity  of  natural  models,  of  materials,  and  of  require- 
ments which  belong  to  savag  .  The  history  of  the 
Stone  Age  is  clearly  seen  to  be  one  of  development.  Begin- 
ning with  the  natural  sharp  stone,  the  transition  to  the 


'  Lane  Fox,  '  Lectures  on  Primitive  Warfare,'  Journ.  United  Service 
Inst.,  1867-9. 

^  Evans  in  '  Trans,  of  Congress  of  Prehistoric  ArchsBology '  (Norwich, 
1868),  p.  191  ;  Rau  in  'Smithsonian  Reports,'  1868  ;  Sir  E.  Belcher  in  Tr. 
Eth.  Soc,  vol.  i.  p.  129. 

VOL   I.  P 


■tt:\ 

mi" 


llr' 


66 


THE   DEVELOPMKNT  OF  CULTURE. 


rudest  artificially  nhaped  stone  implement  is  imperceptibly 
gradual,  and  inward  from  this  rude  stage  much  indepen- 
dent progress  in  different  directions  is  to  be  traced,  till  the 
manufacture  at  last  arrives  at  admirable  artistic  perfection, 
by  the  time  that  the  introduction  of  metal  is  superseding  it. 
So  with  other  imploments  and  fabrics,  of  which  the  stages 
are  known  through  their  whole  course  of  development  from 
+^^"1  merest  nature  to  the  fullest  art.  The  club  is  traced 
trom  tlic  rudest  natural  bludgeon  up  to  the  weapon  of 
finished  shape  and  carving.  Pebbles  held  in  the  hand  to 
hammer  with,  and  cutting-instruuionts  of  stone  shaped  or 
left  smooth  at  one  end  to  bo  held  in  the  hand,  may  be  seen 
in  museums,  hinting  that  the  important  art  of  fixing  instru- 
ments ill  handles  was  the  result  of  invention,  not  of  instinct. 
The  stone  hatchet,  used  as  a  weapon,  passes  into  the  battle- 
axe.  The  spear,  a  pointed  stick  or  polQ,  has  its  point 
hardened  in  the  fire,  and  a  further  improvement  is  to  fix  on 
a  sharp  point  of  horn,  bone,  or  chipped  stone.  Stones  are 
flung  bv  hand,  ar  (^hen  by  the  si  ;  a  contrivance  widely 
but  not  universally  known  among  sp^  'ge  tribes.  om  fii'st 
to  last  in  the  history  of  war  the  spear  r  lance  iB  grasped  as 
a  thrusting  weapon.  Its  use  as  a  misp"'  '  no  doubt  began 
as  early,  but  if'has  hardly  survived  so  ..tr  in  civilization. 
Thus  used,  it  is  most  often  thrown  by  the  unaiil'  arm,  but 
a  sling  for  the  purpose  is  known  to  various  sav  ,e  tribes. 
The  short  cord  with  an  eye  used  in  the  New  Hebrides,  and 
called  a  *  becket '  by  Captain  Cook,  and  a  whip-like  in- 
strument noticed  in  New  Zealand,  are  used  foi-  spear- 
throwing.  But  the  more  usual  instrument  is  a  wooden 
handle,  a  foot  or  two  long.  This  spear- thrower  is  known 
across  the  hig'^  nortliern  districts  of  North  America,  among 
some  tribes  of  South  America,  and  among  the  Australians. 
These  latter,  it  has  been  asserted,  could  not  have  invented 
it  in  their  present  state  of  barbarism.  But  the  remarkable 
feature  of  the  matter  is  that  the  spear-thrower  belongs  espe- 
cially to  savagery,  and  not  to  civilization.  Among  the  higher 
nations  the  nearest  approach  to  it  seems  to  have  been  the 


i 


■.\.i\i\ 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  CULTUBE. 


m 


rcoptibly 
indepen- 
i,  till  the 
orfection, 
Beding  it. 
ihe  stages 
tiont  from 
is  traced 
weapon  of 
0  hand  to 
shaped  or 
ly  be  seen 
ng  instru- 
if  instinct, 
ihe  battle- 
its  point 
s  to  fix  on 
Stones  are 
Lce  widely 
ll'rom  first 
rasped  as 
began 
Ivilization. 
arm,  but 
^e  tribes, 
rides,  and 
(-like  in- 
Por    spear- 
la  wooden 
is  known 
[ca,  among 
istralians. 
invented 
nnarkable 
)ngs  espe- 
the  higher 
been  the 


classic  amentum,  a  thong  attached  to  the  middle  of  the 
shaft  of  the  javelin  to  throw  it  with.     The  highest  people 
known  to  have  used  the  spear-throwor  proper  were  the 
nations   of  Mexico  and   Central   America.     Its   existence 
among  them    is   vouched  for  by   rep  osentations  in   the 
mythological  pictures,  by  its  Mexican  name  'atlatl,'  and 
by  a  beautifully  artistic  specimen  of  the  thing  itself  in 
the  Christy  Museum;  but  we  do  not  hear  of  it   as    in 
practical  use   after   the   Spanish   Conquest.    In  fact  the 
history  of  the  instrument  seems  in  absolute  opposition  to 
the  degradation-theory,  representing  as  it  does  an  invention 
belonging  to  the  lower  civilization,  and  scarcely  able  to 
survive  beyond.    Nearly  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  blow- 
tube,  which  as  a  serious  weapon  scarcely  ranges  above  rude 
tribes  of  the  East  Indies  and  South  America,  though  kept 
up  in  sport  at  higher  levels.     The  Australian  boomerang 
has  been  claimed  as  derived  from  some  hjrpothetical  high 
culture,  whereas  the  transition-stages  through  which  it  is 
connected  with  the  club  are  to  be  observed  in  its  own 
country,  while  no  civilized  race  possesses  the  weapon. 

The  use  of  spring  traps  of  boughs,  of  switches  to  fillip 
small  missiles  with,  and  of  the  remarkable  darts  of  the  Pelew 
Islands,  bent  and  made  to  fly  by  their  own  spring,  indicate 
inventions  which  may  have  led  to  that  of  the  bow,  while 
the  arrow  is  a  miniature  form  of  the  javelin.  The  practice 
of  poisoning  arrows,  after  the  manner  of  stings  and  serpents' 
fangs,  is  no  civilized  device,  but  a  characteristic  of  lower 
life,  which  is  generally  discarded  even  at  the  barbaric  stage. 
The  ai*t  of  narcotizing  fish,  remembered  but  not  approved 
by  high  civilization,  bolouf^s  to  many  savage  tribes,  who 
might  easily  discover  it  in  any  forest  pool  where  a  suitable 
plant  had  fallen  in.  The  art  of  setting  fences  to  catch  fish 
at  the  ebb  of  the  tide,  so  common  among  the  lower  races,  is 
a  simple  device  for  assisting  nature  quite  likely  to  occur  to 
the  savage,  in  whom  sharp  hunger  is  no  mean  ally  of  dull 
wit.  Thus  it  is  with  other  arts.  Fire-making,  cooking, 
pottery,  the  textile  arts,  are  to  be  traced  along  lines  of 

F  2 


68 


THF  DEVELOPMRNT  OF  CULTURE. 


■«.  ! 


frii 


I -VI 


»'iy 


gradual  improvement.'  Music  begins  with  the  rattle  and 
the  drum,  which  in  one  way  or  another  hold  their  places 
from  end  to  end  of  civilization,  while  pipes  and  stringed 
instruments  represent  an  advanced  musical  art  which  is  still 
developing.  So  with  architecture  and  agriculture.  Com- 
plex, elaborate,  and  highly-reasoned  as  are  the  upper  stages 
of  these  arts,  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  their  lower  stages 
begin  with  mere  direct  imitation  of  nature,  copying  the 
shelters  which  nature  provides,  and  the  propagation  of 
plants  which  nalure  performs.  Without  enumerating  to 
the  same  purpose  the  remaining  industries  of  savage  life,  it 
may  be  said  generally  that  their  facts  resist  rather  than 
require  a  theory  of  degradation  from  higher  culture.  They 
agree  with,  and  often  necessitate,  the  same  view  of  develop- 
ment which  we  know  by  experience  to  account  for  the  origin 
and  progress  of  the  arts  among  ourselves. 

In  the  various  branches  of  the  problem  which  will  hence- 
forward occupy  our  attention,  that  of  determining  the 
relation  of  the  mental  condition  of  savages  to  that  of  civi- 
lized men,  it  is  an  excellent  guide  and  safeguard  to  keep 
before  our  minds  the  theory  of  development  in  the  material 
arts.  Throughout  all  the  manifestations  of  the  human 
intellect,  facts  will  be  found  to  fall  into  their  places  on  the 
same  general  lines  of  evolution.  The  notion  of  the  intel- 
lectual state  of  savages  as  resulting  from  decay  of  previous 
high  knowledge,  seems  to  have  as  little  evidence  in  its 
favour  as  that  stone  celts  are  the  degenerate  successors  of 
Sheffield  axes,  or  earthen  grave -mounds  degraded  copies  of 
Egyptian  pyramids.  The  study  of  savage  and  civilized  life 
alike  avail  us  to  trace  in  the  early  history  of  the  human 
intellect,  not  gifts  of  transcendental  wisdom,  but  rude 
shrewd  sense  taking  up  the  facts  of  common  life  and 
shaping  from  them  schemes  of  primitive  philosophy.  It 
will  be  seen  again  and  again,  by  examining  such  topics  as 
language,  mythology,  custom,  religion,  that  savage  opinion 
is  in  a  more  or  less  rudimentary  state,  while  the  civilized 

'  See  details  in  <  Early  History  of  Mankind,'  chap,  vii.-ix. 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  07  CULTURE. 


6'.) 


rattlo  and 
leir  places 
1  siringod 
ioh  Ib  Btill 
ro.  Com- 
per  stages 
ver  stages 
pying  the 
igation  of 
arating  to 
ago  life,  it 
ither  than 
re.  They 
if  develop - 
the  origin 

vill  hence- 
lining  the 
at  of  civi- 
•d  to  keep 
te  material 
tie  human 
ces  on  the 

the  intel- 
f  previous 
nee  in  its 
ccessors  of 
.  copies  of 
vilized  life 
he  human 

but  rude 
life  and 
wphy.  It 
1  topics  as 
ye  opinion 
e  civilized 


mind  still  bears  vostlges,  neither  few  nor  slight,  of  a  past 
condition  from  which  savagcB  ropiosont  the  least,  and 
civilized  men  the  greatest  advance.  Throughout  the  whole 
vast  range  of  the  history  of  human  thought  and  habit,  while 
civilization  haB  to  contend  not  only  with  survival  from 
lower  levels,  but  also  with  degeneration  within  its  own 
borders,  it  yet  proves  capable  of  overcoming  both  and 
taking  its  own  course.  History  within  its  proper  field,  and 
ethnography  over  a  wider  range,  combine  to  show  that  the 
institutions  which  can  best  hold  their  own  in  the  world 
gradually  supersede  the  less  fit  ones,  and  that  this  in- 
cessant conflict  determines  the  general  resultant  course  of 
culture.  I  will  venture  to  set  forth  in  mythic  fashion  how 
progress,  aberration,  and  retrogression  in  the  general  course 
of  culture  contrast  themselves  in  my  own  mind.  We  may 
fancy  ourselves  looking  on  Civilization,  as  in  personal 
figure  she  traverses  the  world;  we  see  her  lingering  or 
resting  by  the  way,  and  often  deviating  into  paths  that 
bring  her  toiling  back  to  where  she  had  passed  by  long 
ago;  but,  direct  or  devious,  her  path  lies  forward,  and  if 
now  and  then  she  tries  a  few  backward  steps,  her  walk  soon 
falls  into  a  helpless  stumbling.  It  is  not  according  to  her 
nature,  her  feet  were  not  made  to  plant  uncertain  steps 
behind  her,  for  both  in  her  forward  view  and  in  her  onward 
gait  she  is  of  truly  human  type. 


.-IX. 


m 
'  t 

. 


im 


CHAPTER  III. 


m 


m: 


SURVIVAL   IN   CULTURE. 

Survival  and  Superstition— Children's  games— Games  of  chance— Tradi- 
tional sayings— ^Nursery  poems — Proverbs — Riddles— Significance  and 
survival  in  Customs  :  sneezing-formula,  rite  of  foundation-sacrifice, 
prejudice  against  saving  a  drowning  man. 

When  a  custom,  an  art,  or  an  opinion  is  fairly  staiied 
in  the  world,  disturbing  influences  may  long  affect  it  so 
slightly  that  it  may  keep  its  course  from  generation  to 
generation,  as  a  stream  once  settled  in  its  bed  will  flow  on 
for  ages.  This  is  mere  permanence  of  culture;  and  the 
special  wonder  about  it  is  that  the  change  and  revolution 
of  human  affairs  should  have  left  so  many  of  its  feeblest 
rivulets  to  run  so  long.  On  the  Tatar  steppes,  six 
hundred  years  ago,  it  was  an  offence  to  tread  on  the  thres- 
hold or  touch  the  ropes  in  entering  a  tent,  and  so  it  appears 
to  be  still.^  Eighteen  centuries  ago  Ovid  mentions  the  vulgar 
Roman  objection  to  marriages  in  May,  which  he  not  un- 
reasonably explains  by  the  occurrence  in  that  month  of  the 
funeral  rites  of  the  Lemuralia : — 

'  Nee  viduiJB  tsedis  eadem,  nee  virginis  apta 
Tempora.    Quae  nupsit,  non  diuturna  fuit. 
Hac  quoque  de  causa,  si  te  proverbia  tangunt, 
Mense  malas  Miiio  nubere  volgus  ait.'  - 

The  saying  that  marriages  in  May  are  unlucky  survives 

'  Will,  de  Rubruquis  in  Pinkorton,  vol.  vii.  pp.  46,  67,  132 ;  Michie, 
'Siberian  Overland  Route,'  p.  96. 

-  Ovid.  Fast.  v.  487.  For  modern  Italy  and  France,  see  Edelestane  du 
M«5ril,  'fitudes  d'Archeol.'  p.  121. 


''Ml 


ance— Tradi- 
nificance  and 
;ion-sacrifice, 


I'ly  stai-ted 
ffect  it  so 
eration  to 
11  flow  on 
;  and  the 
revolution 
fcs  feeblest 
ippes,  six 
the  thres- 
it  appears 
the  vulgar 
i  not  un- 
ath  of  the 


•  survives 

12;  Michie, 
lestane  du 


SURVIVAL   IN   CULTUBE. 


71 


to  this  day  in  England,  a  striking  example  how  an  idea, 
the  mean'  ,\g  of  which  has  perished  for  ages,  may  continue 
to  exist  simply  because  it  has  existed. 

Now  there  are  thousands  of  cases  of  this  kind  which 
have  become,  so  to  speak,  landmarks  in  the  course  of 
culture.  When  in  the  process  of  time  there  has  come 
general  change  in  the  condition  of  a  people,  it  is  usual, 
notwithstanding,  to  find  much  that  manifestly  had  not  its 
origin  in  the  new  state  of  things,  but  has  simply  lasted  on 
into  it.  On  the  strength  of  these  survivals,  it  becomes 
possible  to  declare  that  the  civilization  of  the  people  they 
are  observed  among  must  have  been  derived  from  an  earlier 
state,  in  which  the  proper  home  and  meaning  of  these 
things  are  to  be  found ;  and  thus  collections  of  such  facts 
are  to  be  worked  as  mines  of  historic  knowledge.  In  deal- 
ing with  such  materials,  experience  of  what  actually 
happens  is  the  main  guide,  and  direct  history  has  to  teach 
us,  first  and  foremost,  how  old  habits  hold  their  ground  in 
the  midst  of  a  new  culture  which  certainly  wuld  never 
have  brought  them  in,  but  on  the  contrary  presses  hard  to 
thrust  them  out.  What  this  direct  information  is  like,  a 
single  example  may  show.  The  Dayaks  of  Borneo  were 
not  accustomed  to  chop  wood,  as  we  do,  b}''  notching  out  '''■ 
V-shaped  cuts.  Accordingly,  when  the  white  man  intruded 
among  them  with  this  among  other  novelties,  they  marked 
their  disgust  at  the  innovation  by  levying  a  fine  on  any  of 
their  own  people  who  should  be  caught  chopping  in  the 
European  fashion ;  yet  so  well  aware  were  the  native  wood- 
cutters that  the  white  man's  plan  was  an  improvement  on 
their  own,  that  they  would  use  it  surreptitiously  when  they 
could  trust  one  another  not  to  tell.^  The  account  is 
twenty  years  old,  and  very  likely  the  foreign  chop  may  have 
ceased  to  be  an  offence  against  Dayak  conservatism,  but  its 
prohibition  was  a  striking  instance  of  survival  by  ancestral 
authority  in  the  very  teeth  of  common  sense.  Such  a 
proceeding  as  this  would  be  usually,  and  not  improperly, 

•  '  Journ.  Ind.  Arcliip.'  (ed.  by  J.  R.  Logan),  vol.  ii.  p.  liv. 


72 


SURVIVAL  IN   CULTUBE. 


/  I' 


MM 


described  as  a  superstition ;  and,  indeed,  this  name  would 
be  given  to  a  large  proportion  of  survivals,  such  for  instance 
as  may  be  collected  by  the  hundred  from  books  of  folk-lore 
and  occult  science.  But  the  term  superstition  now  implies 
a  reproach,  and  though  this  reproach  may  be  often  cast 
deservedly  on  fragments  of  a  dead  lower  culture  em- 
bedded in  a  living  higher  one,  yet  in  many  cases  it  would 
be  harsh,  and  even  untrue.  For  the  ethnographer's  pur- 
pose, at  any  rate,  it  is  desirable  to  introduce  such  a  term 
as  '  survival,'  simply  to  denote  the  historical  fact  which 
the  word  'superstition'  is  now  spoiled  for  expressing. 
Moreover,  there  have  to  be  included  as  partial  survivals 
the  mass  of  cases  where  enough  of  the  old  habit  is  kept  up 
for  its  origin  to  be  recognizable,  though  in  taking  a  new 
form  it  has  been  so  adapted  to  new  circumstances  as  still  to 
hold  its  place  on  its  OAvn  merits. 

Thus  it  would  be  seldom  reasonable  to  call  the  children's 
games  of  modern  Europe  superstitions,  though  many  of 
them  are  survivals,  and  indeed  remarkable  ones.  If  the 
games  of  children  and  of  gj  own-up  people  be  examined 
with  an  eye  to  ethnological  1<  ssons  to  be  gained  from  them, 
one  of  the  first  things  that  strikes  us  is  how  many  of  thein 
are  only  sportive  imitations  of  ihe  serious  business  of  life. 
As  children  in  modern  ci vilized  times  play  at  dining  and 
driving  horses  and  going  to  church,  so  a  main  amusement 
of  savage  children  is  to  imitate  the  occupations  which  they 
will  carry  on  in  earnest  a  few  years  later,  and  thus  their 
games  are  in  fact  their  lessons.  The  Esquimaux  children's 
sports  are  shooting  with  a  tiny  bow  and  arrow  at  a  mark, 
and  building  little  snow-huts,  which  they  light  up  with 
scraps  of  lamp-wick  begged  from  their  mothers.  ^  Miniature 
boomerangs  and  spears  are  among  the  toys  of  Australian 
child;ren  ;  and  even  as  the  fathers  keep  up  as  a  recognized 
means  of  getting  themselves  wives  the  practice  of  carrying 
them  off  by  violence,  so  playing  at  such.  Sabine  marriage 
has  been  noticed  as  one  of  the  regular  games  of  the  little 

'  Klemm,  '  Cultur-Gese'iichte,'  vol.  ii.  p.  20!i. 


SURVIVAL   IN   CULTURE. 


73 


ame  would 
or  instance 
)f  folk-lore 
ow  implies 
often  cast 
alture  em- 
is  it  would 
pher's  pur- 
ich  a  term 
fact  which 
expressing. 
1  survivals 
is  kept  up 
ing  a  new 
s  as  still  to 

i  children's 

h  many  of 

es.     If  the 

examined 

Tom  them, 

y  of  them 

less  of  life. 

dining  and 

imusement 

»vhich  they 

thus  their 

children's 

bt  a  mirk, 

t  up  with 

Miniature 

Australian 

recognized 

f  carrying 

marriage 

the  little 


native  boys  and  girls. ^  Now  it  is  quite  a  usual  thing  in 
the  world  for  a  game  to  outlive  the  serious  practice  of  which 
it  is  an  imitation.  The  bow  and  arrow  is  a  conspicuous 
instance.  Ancient  and  wide-spread  in  savage  culture,  we 
trace  this  instrument  through  barbaric  and  classic  life  and 
onward  to  a  high  mediaeval  level.  But  now,  when  we  look 
on  at  an  archery  meeting,  or  go  by  country  lanes  at  the 
season  when  toy  bows  and  arrows  are  '  in '  among  the 
children,  we  see,  reduced  to  a  mere  sportive  survival,  the 
ancient  weapon  which  among  a  few  savage  tribes  still  keeps 
its  deadly  place  in  the  hunt  and  the  battle.  The  cross-bow, 
a  comparatively  late  and  local  improvement  on  the  long- 
bow, has  disappeared  yet  more  utterly  from  practical  use  ; 
but  as  a  toy  it  is  in  full  European  service,  and  likely  to 
remain  so.  For  antiquity  and  wide  diffusion  in  the  world 
throu  jh  savage  up  to  classic  and  medieval  times,  the  sling 
ranks  vvith  the  bow  and  arrow.  But  in  the  middle  ages  it 
fell  out  of  use  as  a  practical  weapon,  and  it  was  all  in  vain 
that  the  15th  century  poet  commended  the  art  of  slinging 
among  the  exercises  of  a  good  soldier : — 

'  Use  eek  the  cast  of  stone,  with  slynge  or  honde : 

It  falleth  ofte,  yf  other  shot  there  none  is, 
Men  iiarneysed  in  steel  may  not  withstonde, 
The  multitude  and  mighty  cast  of  stonys  ; 
And  stonys  in  effecte,  are  every  where, 
And  slynges  are  not  noyous  for  to  beare.' "' 

Perhaps  an  serious  a  use  of  the  sling  as  can  now  be  pointed 
out  within  che  limits  of  civilization  is  among  the  herdsmen 
of  Spanish  America,  who  sling  so  cleverly  that  the  saying  is 
they  can  hit  a  beast  on  either  horn  and  turn  him  which 
way  they  will.  But  the  use  of  the  rude  old  weapon  is 
especially  kept  up  by  boys  at  play,  who  are  here  again  the 
representatives  of  remotely  ancient  culture. 

As  games  thus  keep  up  the  record  of  primitive  warlike 

>  Oldfield  in  'Tr.  Eth.  Soc'  vol.  iii.  p.  266  ;  Dumont  d'Urville,  '  Voy.  do 
rAstrolabo,'  vol.  i.  p.  411. 

-  "Strutt,  '  Sports  and  Pastimes,'  book  ii.  chap.  ii. 


'':'ll!!l 


74 


SURVIVAL   IN  CULTURE. 


I 


'      I 


'l' 


ii;  I 


arts,  so  they  reproduce,  in  what  are  at  once  spoi*ts  and 
little  children's  lessons,  early  stages  in  the  history  of  child- 
like tribes  of  mankind.  English  children  delighting  in  the 
imitations  of  cries  of  animals  and  so  forth,  and  New  Zea- 
landers  playing  their  favourite  game  of  imitating  in  chorus 
the  saw  hissing,  the  adze  chipping,  the  musket  roaring,  and 
the  other  instruments  making  their  proper  noises,  are 
alike  showing  at  its  source  the  imitative  element  so  import- 
ant in  the  formation  of  language.^  When  we  look  into  the 
early  developmejat  of  the  art  of  counting,  and  see  the 
evidence  of  tribe  alter  tribe  having  obtained  numerals 
through  the  primitive  stage  of  counting  on  their  fingers,  we 
fii>.J  a  certain  ethnof;raphic  interest  in  the  games  which 
teach  this  earliest  numeration.  The  New  Zealand  game  of 
'  ti '  is  described  as  played  by  counting  on  the  fingers,  a 
number  being  called  by  one  player,  and  he  having  instantly 
to  touch  the  proper  finger ;  while  in  the  Samoan  game  one 
player  holds  out  so  many  fingers,  and  his  opponent  must  do 
the  same  instantly  or  lose  a  point.^  These  may  be  native 
Polynesian  games,  or  they  may  be  our  own  children's 
games  borrow  ed.  In  the  English  nursery  the  child  learns 
to  say  how  many  fingers  the  nurse  shows,  and  the  appointed 
formula  of  the  game  is  '  Buck,  Buck,  how  many  horns  do  I 
hold  up  ? '  The  game  of  one  holding  up  fingers  and  the 
others  holding  up  fingers  to  match  is  mentioned  in  Strutt. 
We  may  see  small  schoolboys  in  the  lanes  playing  at  the 
guessing-game,  where  one  gets  on  another's  back  and  holds 
up  fingers,  the  other  must  guess  how  many.  It  is  interest- 
ing to  notice  the  wide  distribution  and  long  permanence  of 
these  trifles  in  history  when  we  read  the  following  passage 
from  Petronius  Ai'biter,  written  in  the  time  of  Nero  : — 
'  Trinialchio,  not  to  seem  moved  by  the  loss,  kissed  the 
boy  and  bade  hi)n  get  up  on  his  back.     Without  delay  the 


*  Polack,  'New  Zonlanders,'  vol.  ii.  p.  171. 

^  Polack,  ibid.  ;  Wilkes.  -U-S.  Exp.'  vol.  i.  p.  194.  Seo  the  account  of 
the  game  of  liagi  in  Mariner,  '  Tonga  Is.'  vol.  ii.  p.  339  ;  and  Yate,  '  New 
Zealand,'  p.  113. 


jpoiiiB  and 
y  of  child- 
ting  in  the 

New  Zea- 
T  in  chorus 
mring,  and 
loises,  are 
so  import- 
)k  into  the 
ad  see  the 
numerals 
fingers,  we 
nes  which 
id  game  of 
!  fingers,  a 
g  instantly 
1  game  one 
nt  must  do 

be  native 

children's 
hild  learns 

appointed 
horns  do  I 
and  the 

in  Strutt. 

ing  at  the 

and  holds 
interest- 

anence  of 


passage 

Nero  : — 

issed  the 

delay  the 


account  of 
Yate,  '  New 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


75 


boy  climbed  on  horseback  on  him,  and  slapped  him  on  the 
shoulders  with  his  hand,  laughing  and  calling  out '  bucca, 
hucca,  quot  sunt  hie  'i '  ^  The  simple  counting-games 
played  with  the  fingers  must  not  be  confounded  with  the 
addition-game,  where  each  player  throws  out  a  hand,  and 
the  sum  of  all  the  fingers  shown  has  to  be  called,  the 
successful  caller  scoring  a  point ;  each  should  call  the 
total  before  he  sees  his  adversary's  hand,  so  that  the  skill 
lies  especially  in  shrewd  guessing.  This  game  affords  end- 
less amusement  to  Southern  Europe,  where  it  is  known 
in  Italian  as  '  morra,'  and  in  French  as  '  mourre,'  and  it  is 
popular  in  China  under  the  name  of  ts'^ai  met,  or  '  guess 
how  many ! '  So  peculiar  a  game  would  hardly  have  been 
invented  twice  over  in  Europe  and  Asia,  and  as  the  Chinese 
term  does  not  appear  to  be  ancient,  we  may  take  it  as 
likely  that  the  Portuguese  merchants  introduced  the 
game  into  China,  as  they  certainly  did  into  Japan.  The 
ancient  Egyptians,  a^^  their  sculptures  show,  used  to  play 
at  some  kind  of  finger-game,  and  the  Romans  had  their 
finger-flashing,  '  micare  digitis/  at  which  butchers  used 
to  gamble  with  their  customers  for  bits  of  meat.  It 
is  not  clear  whether    these   were   morra  or   some   other 


games. 


When  Scotch  lads,  playing  at  the  game  of  '  tappie- 
tousie,'  take  one  another  by  the  forelock  jnd  say,  '  Will  ye 
be  my  man  ? '  ^  they  know  nothing  of  the  old  symbolic 
manner  of  receiving  a  bondman  which  they  are  keeping  up 
in  survival.  The  wooden  drill  for  making  fire  by  friction, 
which  so  many  rude  or  ancient  races  are  known  to  have 
used  as  their  common  household  instrument,  and  w^hich 
lasts  on  among  the  modern  Hindus  as  the  time-honoured 
sacred  means  of  lighting  the  pure  sacrificial  flame,  has  been 


'  Petron.  Arbitri  Siitiru?  rec.  Bucliler,  p.  64  (other  readings  are  hume 
or  bucco). 

-Compare  Davis,  'Chinese,'  vol.  i.  p.  317;  Wilkinson,  Ancient 
Egyptians,  vol.  i.  p.  188;  B'acciolati,  Lexicon,  s.  v.  'micare';  &c. 

"  Jamieson,  '  Diet,  of  Scottish  Lang.'  s.  v. 


'i!!il!!l! 


'I  :ii ' 


jiill 

iii 


|:P 


KlV 


76 


SURVIVAL   IN  CULTURE. 


found  surviving  in  Switzerland  as  a  toy  among  the  children, 
who  made  fire  with  it  in  sport,  much  as  Esquimaux  would 
have  done  in  earnest.'  In  Gothland  it  is  on  record  that  the 
ancient  sacrifice  of  the  wild  boar  has  actually  been  carried 
on  into  modern  time  in  sportive  imitation,  by  lads  in  mas- 
querading clothes  with  tlieir  faces  blackened  and  painted, 
while  the  victim  was  personated  by  a  boy  rolled  up  in  furs 
and  placed  upon  a  seat,  with  a  tuft  of  pointed  straws  in  his 
mouth  to  imitate  the  bristles  of  the  boar.^  One  innocent 
little  child's  sport  of  our  own  time  is  strangely  mixed  up 
with  an  ugly  story  of  about  a  thousand  years  ago.  The 
game  in  question  is  thus  played  in  France  : — The  children 
stand  in  a  ring,  one  lights  a  spill  of  paper  and  passes  it  on 
to  the  next,  saying,  '  petit  bonhomme  vit  encore,'  and  so 
on  round  the  ring,  each  saying  the  words  and  passing  on 
the  flame  as  quickly  as  may  be,  for  the  one  in  whose  hands 
the  spill  goes  out  has  to  pay  a  forfeit,  and  it  is  then  pro- 
claimed that  'petit  bonhomme  est  mort.'  Grimm  men- 
tions a  similar  game  in  Germany,  played  with  a  burning 
stick,  and  Halliwell  gives  the  nursery  rhyme  which  is  said 
with  it  when  it  is  played  in  England : — 

'  Jack's  alive  and  in  very  good  health, 
If  he  dies  in  your  hand  you  must  look  to  yourself.' 

Now,  as  all  readers  of  Church  history  know,  it  used  to  be  a 
favourite  engine  of  controversy  for  the  adherents  of  an  esta- 
blished faith  to  accuse  heretical  sects  of  celebrating  hideous 
orgies  as  the  mysteries  of  their  religion.  The  Pagans  told 
these  stories  of  the  Jews,  the  Jews  told  them  of  the 
Christians,  and  Christians  themselves  reached  a  bad  emi- 
nence in  the  art  of  slandering  religious  opponents  whose 
moral  life  often  seems  in  fact  to  have  been  exceptionally 
pure.  The  Manichaeans  were  an  especial  mark  for  such 
aspersions,  which  were  passed  on  to  a  sect  considered  as 
their  successors — the  Pau^lcians,  whose  name  reappears  in 


'  '  Early  History  of  Mankind,'  p.  244,  &c. ;  Grimm,  '  Douts  >e  Myth.,' 
.  573.  ^  Grimm,  ibid.,  p.  1200. 


SURVIVAL  IN   CULTURE. 


n 


iho  children, 
naux  would 
ord  that  the 
been  carried 
ads  in  mas- 
nd  painted, 
i  up  in  furs 
braws  in  his 
le  innocent 
T  mixed  up 
}  ago.  The 
'he  children 
)asses  it  on 
)re,'  and  so 
passing  on 
hose  hands 
3  then  pro- 
•imm  men- 
a  burning 
lich  is  said 


irself.' 

Bed  to  be  a 
of  an  esta- 
ng  hideous 
*agans  told 
:;m  of  the 
bad  emi- 
nts  whose 
optionally 
c  for  such 
isidei-ed  as 
ippears  in 

:s  "'e  Mytli.,' 


the  middle  ages,  in  connexion  with  the  Cathari.  To  these 
latter,  apparently  fiom  an  expression  in  one  of  their  reli- 
gious formulas,  was  given  the  name  of  Boni  Homines,  which 
became  a  recognized  term  for  the  Albigenses.  It  is  clear 
that  the  early  Paulicians  excited  the  anger  of  the  orthodox 
by  objecting  to  sacred  images,  and  calling  those  who  vene- 
rated them  idolaters  ;  and  about  A.D.  700,  John  of  Osun, 
Patriarch  of  Armenia,  wrote  a  diatribe  against  the  sect, 
urging  accusations  of  the  regular  anti-Ma nichtean  type,  but 
with  a  peculiar  feature  which  brings  his  statement  into  the 
present  singular  connexion.  He  declares  that  they  blas- 
phemously call  the  orthodox  '  image-worshippers ; '  that 
they  themselves  worship  the  sun  ;  that,  moreover,  they  mix 
wheaten  flour  with  the  blood  of  infants  and  therewith  cele- 
brate their  communion,  and  '  when  they  have  slain  by  the 
worst  of  deaths  a  boy,  the  first-born  of  his  mother,  thrown 
from  hand  to  hand  among  them  by  turns,  they  venerate 
him  in  whose  hand  the  child  expires,  as  having  attained  to 
the  first  dignity  of  the  sect.'  To  explain  the  correspond- 
ence of  these  atrocious  details  with  the  nursery  sport,  it  is 
perhaps  the  most  likely  supposition,  not  that  the  game  of 
'  Petit  Bonhomme '  keeps  up  a  recollection  of  a  legend  of 
the  Boni  Homines,  but  that  the  game  was  known  to  the 
children  of  the  eighth  century  much  as  it  is  now,  and  that 
the  Armenian  Patriarch  simply  accused  the  Paulicians  of 
playing  at  it  with  live  babes.' 

'  Halliwell, 'Popular Rhymes,' p.  112  ;  Grimm,  'D.M.'p.  812.  Bastian, 
'  Mensch,'  vol.  iii.  p.  106.  Joliannis  Philosophi  Oznionsis  Opera  (Aucher), 
Venice,  1834,  pp.  78-89.  '  Infantium  sanguini  similam  commiscentes  ille- 
gitimam  communionem  deglutiunt ;  quo  pacto  porcorum  suo8  foetus  im- 
maniter  vescentium  exsuperant  edacitatem.  Quique  illorum  cadavera 
.super  tecti  culmen  celantes,  ac  sursum  oculis  in  cojlum  defixis  respicientes, 
.jurant  alieno  vorbo  ac  sensu  :  Altissimiis  novlt.  Solem  vcro  deprecari 
volentes,  ajunt  :  Solicule,  Luciciile ;  atque  aBreos,  vagosque  dsemones  clam 
invocant,  juxta  Manichreorum  Simonisque  incantatoris  errores.  Similiter 
et  primum  parientis  foominaj  pueruin  do  manu  in  manum  inter  eos  invicem 
projeotum,  quum  pen.simiX  morte  occiderint,  ilium,  in  cujus  manu  ex.spira- 
verit  puor,  ad  primam  sectse  dignitatem  provectum  venerantur  ;  atque  per 
utriusquo  nomen  audent  insane  jurare  ;  Juro,  dicunt,  per  unigenitnm  fllium  : 
ot  iterum  ;  Tesiem  habeo  tibi.  gloriam  ejus,  in  cujus  manum  unigeuiius  filius  spiritimi 


iir" 


78 


SUnVIVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


It  may  be  possible  to  trace  another  interesting  group  of 
sports  as  survivals  from  a  branch  of  savage  philosophy,  once 
of  high  rank  though  now  fallen  into  merited  decay.  Games 
of  chance  correspond  so  closely  with  aiis  of  divination 
belonging  already  to  savage  culture,  that  there  is  force  in 
applying  to  several  such  games  the  rule  that  the  serious 
practice  comes  first,  and  in  time  may  dwindle  to  the  sportive 
survival.  To  a  modern  educated  man,  drawing  lots  or 
tossing  up  a  coin  is  an  appeal  to  chance,  that  is,  to  igno- 
rance; it  is  committing  the  decision  of  a  question  to  a 
mechanical  process,  itself  in  no  way  unnatural  or  even 
extraordinary,  but  merely  so  difficult  to  follow  that  no  one 
can  say  beforehand  what  will  come  of  it.  But  we  also  know 
that  this  scientific  doctrine  of  chance  is  not  that  of  early 
civilization,  which  has  little  in  common  with  the  mathema- 
tician's theory  of  probabilities,  but  much  in  common  with 
such  sacred  divination  as  the  choice  of  Matthias  by  lot  as 
a  twelfth  apostle,  or,  in  a  later  age,  the  Moravian  Brethren's 
rite  of  choosing  wives  for  their  young  men  by  casting  lots 
with  prayer.  It  was  to  no  blind  chance  that  the  Maoris 
looked  when  they  divined  by  throwing  up  lots  to  find  a 
thief  among  a  suspected  company;^  or  the  Guinea  negroes 
when  they  went  to  the  fetish-priest,  who  shuffled  his  bundle 
of  little  strips  of  leather  and  gave  his  sacred  omen.^  The 
crowd  with  uplifted  hands  pray  to  the  gods,  when  the  heroes 
cast  lots  in  the  cap  of  Atreidea  Agamemnon,  to  know  who 
shall  go  forth  to  do  battle  with  Hektor  and  help  the  well- 
greaved  Greeks.^  With  prayer  to  the  gods,  and  looking  up 
to  heaven,  the  German  priest  or  father,  as  Tacitus  relates, 
drew  three  lots  from  among  the  marked  fruit-tree  twigs 
scattered  on  a  pure  white  garment,  and  interpreted  the 

suum  tradidit ....  Contra  hos  [the  orthodox]  audacter  evomere  praesumunt 
impietatis  siiae  bilom,  atque  insanientes,  ex  mali  spiritus  blasphemitl, 
Sailpfkolan  vocant ' 

'  Polack,  vol.  i.  p.  270. 

^  Bosnian,  ■  Guinese  Kust,'  letter  x. ;  Eng.  Trans,  in  Pinkerton,  vol.  xvi. 
p.  399. 

•'  Homer.  Iliad,  vii.  171  ;  Pindar.  Pyth.  iv.  338. 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


79 


ig  group  of 
aophy,  once 
-y.  Games 
divination 
is  force  in 
the  serious 
he  sportive 
ng  lots  or 
is,  to  igno- 
istion  to  a 
il  or  even 
hat  no  one 
also  know 
at  of  early 
mathema- 
imon  with 
s  by  lot  as 
Brethren's 
isting  lots 
,he  Maoris 

to  find  a 
ea  negroes 
lis  bundle 
ien.2  The 
the  heroes 
enow  who 

the  well- 
ooking  up 

s  relates, 
.ree  twigs 

reted  the 


prsesumunt 
blasphemia, 


)n.  vol.  xvi. 


answer  from  their  signs.^  As  in  ancient  Italy  oracles  gave 
responses  by  graven  lots,^  so  the  modern  Hindus  decide 
disputes  by  casting  lots  in  front  of  a  temple,  appealing 
to  the  gods  with  cries  of  '  Let  justice  be  shown  1  Show 
the  innocent  I '  ^ 

The  uncivilized  man  thinks  that  lots  or  dice  are  adjusted 
in  their  fall  with  reference  to  the  meaning  he  may  choose  to 
attach  to  it,  and  especially  he  is  apt  to  suppose  spiritual 
beings  standing  over  the  diviner  or  the  gambler,  shuffling  the 
lots  or  turning  up  the  dice  to  make  them  give  their  answers. 
This  view  held  its  place  firmly  in  the  middle  ages,  and 
later  in  history  we  still  find  games  of  chance  looked  on  as 
results  of  supernatural  operation.  The  general  change  from 
mediaeval  to  modern  notions  in  this  respect  is  well  shown 
in  a  remarkable  work  published  in  1619,  which  seems  to 
have  done  much  toward  bringing  the  change  about.  Thomas 
Gataker,  a  Puritan  minister,  in  his  treatise  '  Of  the  Nature 
and  Use  of  Lots,'  states,  in  order  to  combat  them,  the  fol- 
lowing among  the  current  objections  maae  against  games  of 
chance : — *  Lots  may  not  be  used  but  with  great  reverence, 
because  the  disposition  of  them  commeth  immediately  from 
God '....'  the  nature  of  a  Lot,  which  is  affirmed  to 
bee  a  worke  of  Gods  speciall  and  immediate  providence,  a 
sacred  or  .ile,  a  divine  judgement  or  sentence :  the  light  use 
of  it  thert  -ire  to  be  an  abuse  of  Gods  name ;  and  so  a  sinne 
against  the  tnird  Commandement.'  Gataker,  in  opposition 
to  this,  argues  that '  to  expect  the  issue  and  event  of  it,  as 
by  ordinarie  meanes  from  God,  is  common  to  all  actions : 
to  expect  it  by  an  immediate  and  extraordinarie  worke  is  no 
more  lawfuU  here  than  elsewhere,  yea  is  indeed  mere  super- 
stition.' *  It  took  time,  however,  for  this  opinion  to  become 
prevalent  in  the  educated  world.  After  a  lapse  of  forty 
years,  Jeremy  Taylor  could  still  bring  out  a  remnant  of  the 

»  Tacit.  Gei    ;  nia.  10. 

"  Smith's  '  Die.  of  Gr.  and  Rom.  Ant.,'  arts.  '  oraculum,'  '  sortea.' 

^  Roberts,  '  Oriental  Illustrations,'  p.  163. 

*  Gataker,  pp.  91, 141 ;  see  Lecky,  '  History  of  Rationalism,'  vol.  i.  p.  307. 


80 


SURVIVAL  IN  UULTVRE. 


V  ^! 


older  notion,  in  the  course  of  a  generally  reasonable  argu- 
ment ill  favor  /  f  games  of  chance  when  played  for  refresh- 
ment and  nt  o  i'ur  money.  'I  have  !^eard,'  he  says,  'from 
them  that  have  skill  in  such  things,  thei^  are  such  strange 
chances,  such  promoting  of  a  hand  by  fancy  and  little  arts 
of  geomancy,  such  constant  winning  on  one  side,  such 
unreasonable  losses  on  the  other,  and  these  stranjie  con- 
tingencies  produce  such  horrible  effects,  that  it  is  not 
improbable  that  God  hath  permitted  the  conduct  of  such 
games  of  chance  to  the  devil,  who  will  order  them  so  where 
he  can  do  most  mischief;  but,  without  the  instrumentality 
of  money,  he  could  do  nothing  at  all/  ^  With  what  vitality 
the  notion  of  supernatural  interference  in  games  of  chance 
even  now  survives  in  Europe,  is  well  nhown  by  the  still 
flourishing  arts  of  gambler's  magic.  The  folk-lore  of  our 
own  day  continues  to  teach  that  a  Good  Friday's  egg  is  to 
be  carried  for  luck  in  gaming,  and  that  a  turn  of  one's  chair 
will  turn  one's  fortune  ;  the  Tyrolese  knows  the  charm  for 
getting  from  the  devil  the  gift  of  winning  at  cards  and  dice  ; 
there  is  still  a  great  sale  on  the  continent  for  books  which 
show  how  to  discover,  from  dreams,  good  numbers  for  the 
lottery ;  and  the  Lusatian  peasant  will  even  hide  his  lottery- 
tickets  under  the  altar-cloth  that  they  may  receive  the 
blessing  with  the  sacrament,  and  so  stand  a  better  chance 
of  winning.^ 

Arts  of  divination  and  games  of  chance  are  so  similar  in 
principle,  that  the  very  same  instrument  passes  from  one 
use  to  the  other.  This  appears  in  the  accounts,  very 
suggestive  from  this  point  of  view,  of  the  Polynesian  art  of 
divination  by  spinning  the  '  niu '  or  cocoa-nut.  In  the 
Tongan  Islands,  in  Mariner's  time,  the  principal  purpose 
for  which  this  was  solemnly  performed  was  to  enquire  if  a 
sick  person  would  recover  ;  prayer  was  made  aloud  to  the 
patron  god  of  the  family  to  direct  the  nut,  which  was  then 
spun,  and  its  direction  at  rest  indicated  the  intention  of  the 

'  Jeremy  Taylor,  '  Ductor  Dubitantium,'  in  Works,  vol.  xiv.  p.  337. 
2  See  Wuttke,  '  Deutsche  Volksaberglaube,'  pp.  96,  115,  178. 


Hi 


SURVIVAL   IN  CULTURE. 


81 


ablo  argu- 
or  refresh- 
ays,  *  from 
jh  strange 
little  arts 
side,  such 
ange  con- 
it  is  not 
est  of  such 
n  so  where 
imentality 
at  vitality 
of  chance 
y  the  still 
ore  of  our 
3  egg  is  to 
one's  chair 
charm  for 
i  and  dice ; 
oks  which 
irs  for  the 
lis  lottery- 
Dceive  the 
ter  chance 

similar  in 
from  one 
nts,  very 
lian  art  of 
In  the 
purpose 
quire  if  a 
ud  to  the 
was  then 
ion  of  the 

p.  337. 


god.  On  oth("  occasionfi,  when  the  cocoa-nut  was  merely 
spun  for  amu;  t  inent,  no  prayer  was  made,  and  no  credit 
given  to  the  result.  Here  the  serious  and  the  sportive  use 
of  this  rudimenta  teetotum  are  found  together.  In  the 
Samoan  Isluuds,  however,  at  a  later  date,  the  Rev.  G. 
Tn'"ner  fiiKls  the  practice  passed  into  a  different  stage.  A 
part}  dit  ^  p^rcii  the  cocoa-nut  is  spun  in  the  midrliH, 
and  the  or;  nswer  is  according  to  the  person  tow  r-'k 

whom      "  ^  fs'  '>of  the  fruit  is  turned  when  it  stop^  ; 

but  w  KM  ly  the  Samoans  used  this  as  an  art  of 

divinatiou  t  iver  thieves,  now  they  only  keep  it  up  as  a 

way  of  castii...,  lots,  and  as  a  game  of  forfeits.'  It  is  in 
favour  of  the  vi(  w  of  serious  divination  being  the  earlier 
use,  to  notice  that  the  New  Zealanders,  though  they  have 
no  cocoa-nuts,  keep  up  a  trace  of  the  time  when  their 
ancestors  in  the  tropical  islands  had  them  and  divined  with 
them  j  for  it  is  the  well-known  Polynesian  word  '  niu,'  i.  e. 
cocoa-nut,  which  is  still  retained  in  use  among  the  Maoris 
for  other  kinds  of  divination,  especially  that  performed  with 
sticks.  Mr.  Taylor,  who  points  out  this  curiously  neat 
piece  of  ethnological  evidence,  records  another  case  to  the 
present  purpose.  A  method  of  divination  was  to  clap  the 
hands  together  while  a  proper  charm  was  repeated ;  if  the 
fingers  went  clear  in,  it  was  favourable,  but  a  check  was  an 
ill  omen ;  on  the  question  of  a  party  crossing  the  country 
in  war-time,  the  locking  of  all  the  fingers,  or  the  stoppage 
of  some  or  all,  were  naturally  interpreted  to  mean  clear 
passage,  meeting  a  travelling  party,  or  being  stopped  alto- 
gether. This  quaint  little  symbolic  art  Oi"  divination  seems 
now  only  to  survive  as  a  game ;  it  is  called  '  puni-puni.'  ^ 
A  similar  connexion  between  divination  and  gambling  is 
shown  by  more  familiar  instruments.  The  hucklebones  or 
astragali  were  used  in  divination  in  ancient  Rome,  being 
converted  into  rude  dice  by  numbering  the  four  sides,  and 

'  Mariner,  'Tonga  Islands,'  vol.  ii.  p.  239  ;  Turner,  '  Polynesia,'  p.  214  ; 
Williams,  '  Fiji,'  vol.  i.  p.  228.     Compare  Cranz,  '  GrOnland,'  p.  231. 
»  R.  Taylor,  'New  Zealand,'  pp.  206,  348,  387. 

VOL.  1.  G 


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23  WEST  MAIN  STREET 

WEBSTER,  N.Y.  14580 

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82 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTl/BE. 


I 


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even  when  the  Roman  gambler  used  the  tali  for  gambling, 
he  would  invoke  a  god  or  his  mistress  before  he  made  his 
throw.^  Such  implements  are  now  mostly  used  for  play, 
but,  nevertheless,  their  use  for  divination  was  by  no  means 
confined  to  the  ancient  world,  for  hucklebones  are  men- 
tioned in  the  17th  century  among  the  fortune-telling  instru- 
ments which  young  girls  divined  for  husbands  with,^  and 
Negro  sorcerers  still  throw  dice  as  a  means  of  detecting 
thieves.^  Lots  serve  the  two  purposes  equally  well.  The 
Chinese  gamble  by  lots  for  cash  and  sweetmeats,  whilst 
they  also  seriously  take  omens  by  solemn  appeals  to  the 
lots  kept  ready  for  the  purpose  in  the  temples,  and  pro- 
fessional diviners  sit  in  the  market-places,  thus  to  open  the 
future  to  their  customers.*  Playing-cards  are  still  in  Euro- 
pean use  for  divination.  That  early  sort  known  as  *  tarots ' 
which  the  French  dealer's  license  to  sell '  cartes  et  tarots ' 
still  keeps  in  mind,  is  said  to  be  preferred  by  fortune-tellers 
to  the  common  kind ;  for  the  tarot-pack,  with  its  more 
numerous  and  complex  figures,  lends  itself  to  a  greater 
variety  of  omens.  In  these  cases,  direct  history  fails  to  tell 
U3  whether  the  use  of  the  instrument  for  omen  or  play  came 
first.  In  this  respect,  the  history  of  the  Greek  '  kottabos ' 
is  instructive.  This  art  of  divination  consisted  in  flinging 
wine  out  of  a  cup  into  a  metal  basin  some  distance  off  with- 
out spiUing  any,  the  thrower  saying  or  thinking  his  mis- 
tress's name,  and  judging  from  the  clear  or  dull  splash  of 
the  wine  on  the  metal  what  his  fortune  in  love  would  be  ; 
but  in  time  the  magic  passed  out  of  the  process,  and  it 
became  a  mere  game  of  dexterity  played  for  a  prize.^  If 
this  be  a  typical  case,  and  the  rule  be  relied  on  that  the 
serious  use  precedes  the  playful,  then  games  of  chance 
may  be  considered  survivals  in  principle  or  detail  from 

>  Smith's  Die,  art.  '  talus.' 

*  Brand,  '  Popular  Antiquities,'  vol.  ii.  p.  412. 

'  D.  &  C.  Livingstone,  'Exp.  to  Zambesi,'  p.  51. 

♦  Doolittle,  *  Chinese,'  vol.  ii.  pp.  108,  286-7  ;  see  384  ;  Bastian,  '  Oestl. 
Asien,'  vol.  iii.  pp.  76,  125. 

'  Smith's  Die,  art.  *  cottabos.' 


SUBVIVAL  IN  CDLTUBE. 


83 


gambling, 
)  made  his 
i  for  play, 
J  no  means 
I  are  men- 
ing  instru- 
with,^  and 
F  detecting 
weU.    The 
sats,  whilst 
eals  to  the 
3,  and  pro- 
to  open  the 
ill  in  Euro- 
as  *  tarots ' 
1  et  tarots ' 
bune-tellers 
h  its  more 
)  a  greater 
fails  to  tell 
play  came 
'  kottabos ' 
in  flinging 
e  off  with- 
g  his  mis- 
1  splash  of 
would  be ; 
ss,  and  it 
prize.^    If 
n  that  the 
of  chance 
etail  from 


stian,  '  Oestl. 


corresponding  processes  of  magic — as  divination  in  sport 
made  gambling  in  earnest. 

Seeking  more  examples  of  the  lasting  on  of  fixed  habits 
among  mankind,  let  us  glance  at  a  group  of  time-honoured 
traditional  sayings,  old  saws  which  have  a  special  interest 
as  cases  of  survival.  Even  when  the  real  signification  of 
these  phrases  has  faded  out  of  men's  minds,  and  they  have 
sunk  into  sheer  nonsense,  or  have  been  overlaid  with  some 
modem  superficial  meaning,  still  the  old  formulas  are 
handed  on,  often  gaining  more  in  mystery  than  they  lose  in 
sense.  We  may  hear  people  talk  of  'buying  a  pig  in  a 
poke,'  whose  acquaintance  with  English  does  not  extend  to 
knowing  what  a  poke  is.  And  certainly  those  who  wish  to  say 
that  they  have  a  great  mind  to  something,  and  who  express 
themselves  by  declaring  that  they  have  '  a  month's  mind 
to  it,  can  have  no  conception  of  the  hopeless  nonsense  they 
are  making  of  the  old  term  of  the  '  month's  mind,'  which 
was  really  the  monthly  service  for  a  dead  man's  soul, 
whereby  he  was  kept  in  mind  or  remembrance.  The  proper 
sense  of  the  phrase  '  sowing  his  wild  oats '  seems  generally 
lost  in  our  modem  use  of  it.  No  doubt  it  once  implied  that 
these  ill  weeds  would  spring  up  in  later  years,  and  how  hard 
it  would  then  be  to  root  them  out.  Like  the  enemy  in  the 
parable,  the  Scandinavian  Loki,  the  mischief-maker,  is  pro- 
verbially said  in  Jutland  to  sow  his  oats  ('  nu  saaer  Lokken 
sin  havre '),  and  the  name  of  '  Loki's  oats '  (Lokeshavre) 
is  given  in  Danish  to  the  wild  oats  (avena  fatua).^  Sayings 
which  have  their  source  in  some  obsolete  custom  or  tale,  of 
course  lie  especially  open  to  such  ill-usage.  It  has  become 
mere  English  to  talk  of  an  '  unlicked  cub '  who  '  wants 
licking  into  shape,'  while  few  remember  the  explanation  of 
these  phrases  from  Pliny's  story  that  bears  are  born  as 
eyeless,  hairless,  shapeless  lumps  of  white  flesh,  and  have 
afterwards  to  be  licked  into  form.^ 

Again,  in  relics  of  old  magic  and  religion,  we  have  some- 


»  Grunm,  '  Deutsche  Myth.'  p.  222. 
«  Plin.  viii.  54. 


G  2 


84 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


5j?l|lp!l 


I''.! 
Ifv 


m'' 


/ 


times  to  look  for  a  deeper  sense  in  conventional  phrases 
than  they  now  carry  on  their  face,  or  for  a  real  meaning  in 
what  now  seems  nonsense.  How  an  ethnographical  record 
may  become  embodied  in  a  popular  saying,  a  Tamil  proverb 
now  current  in  South  India  will  show  perfectly.  On  occa- 
sions when  A  hits  B,  and  C  cries  out  at  the  blow,  the 
bystanders  will  say, '  'Tis  like  a  Koravan  eating  asafoetida 
when  his  wife  lies  in ! '  Now  a  Koravan  belongs  to  a  low 
race  in  Madras,  and  is  defined  as  '  gypsy,  wanderer,  ass- 
driver,  thief,  eater  of  rats,  dweller  in  mat  tents,  fortune- 
teller, and  suspected  character ; '  and  the  explanation  of 
the  proverb  is,  that  whereas  native  women  generally  eat 
asafoetida  as  strengthening  medicine  after  childbirth,  among 
the  Koravans  it  is  the  husband  who  eats  it  to  fortify  himself 
on  the  occasion.  This,  in  fact,  is  a  variety  of  the  world- 
wide custom  of  the  'couvade,'  where  at  childbirth  the 
husband  undergoes  medical  treatment,  in  many  cases  being 
put  to  bed  for  days.  It  appears  that  the  Koravans  are 
among  the  races  practising  this  quaint  custom,  and  that 
their  more  civilized  Tamil  neighbours,  struck  by  its  oddity, 
but  unconscious  of  its  now-forgotten  meaning,  have  taken  it 
up  into  a  proverb.^  Let  us  now  apply  the  same  sort  of 
ethnographical  key  to  dark  sayings  in  issrn  modern 

language.  The  maxim,  'a  hair  of  the  <i  ^  ,nat  bit  you' 
was  originally  neither  a  metaphor  nor  a  joke,  but  a  matter- 
of-fact  recipe  for  curing  the  bite  of  a  dog,  one  of  the  many 
instances  of  the  ancient  homoeopathic  doctrine,  that  what 
hurts  will  also  cure :  it  is  mentioned  in  the  Scandinavian 
Edda,  '  Dog's  hair  heals  dog's  bite.'  ^  The  phrase  '  raising 
the  wind '  now  passes  as  humorous  slang,  but  it  once,  in 
all  seriousness,  described  one  of  the  most  dreaded  of  the 
sorcerer's  arts,  practised  especially  by  the  Finland  wizards, 
of  whose  uncanny  power  over  the  weather  our  sailors  have 
not  to  this  day  forgotten  their  old  terror.     The  ancient 


t  !' 


•  From  a  letter  of  Mr.  H.  J.  Stokes,  Negapatam,  to  Mr,  F.  M.  Jennings. 
General  details  of  the  Couvado  in  '  Early  History  of  Mankind,'  p.  293. 
«  Havamai,  138. 


Rti       l>|M 
111 


8UBVIVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


86 


onal  phrases 
.  meaning  in 
)hical  record 
imil  proverb 
^  On  occa- 
e  blow,  the 
ig  asafoetida 
ngs  to  a  low 
mderer,  ass- 
nts,  fortune- 
planation  of 
generally  eat 
birth,  among 
rtify  himself 
if  the  world- 
lildbirth  the 
Y  cases  being 
[oravans  are 
m,  and  that 
jy  its  oddity, 
pave  taken  it 
same  sort  of 

5vn  modem 
lat  bit  you' 
>ut  a  matter- 
of  the  many 
le,  that  what 
Icandinavian 
rase  '  raising 
t  it  once,  in 
jaded  of  the 
and  wizards, 

sailors  have 
The  ancient 

F.  M.  Jennings, 
ind,'  p.  293. 


ceremony  or  ordeal  of  passing  through  a  fire  or  leaping  over 
burning  brands  has  been  kept  up  so  vigorously  in  the 
British  Isles,  that  Jamioson's  derivation  of  the  phrase  '  to 
haul  over  the  coals '  from  this  rite  appears  in  no  way  far- 
fetched. It  is  not  long  since  an  Irishwoman  in  New  York 
was  tried  for  killing  her  child  ;  she  had  made  it  stand  on 
burning  coals  to  find  out  whether  it  was  really  her  own  or  a 
changeling.^  The  English  nurse  who  says  to  a  fretful  child, 
'  You  got  out  of  bed  wrong  foot  foremost  this  morning,' 
seldom  or  never  knows  the  meaning  of  her  saying  ;  but  this 
is  still  plain  in  the  German  folk-lore  rule,  that  to  get  out  of 
bed  left  foot  first  will  bring  a  bad  day,'^  one  of  the  many 
examples  of  that  simple  association  of  ideas  which  connects 
right  and  left  with  good  and  bad  respectively.  To  conclude, 
the  phrase  'cheating  the  devil'  seems  to  belong  to  that 
familiar  series  of  legends  where  a  man  makes  a  compact 
with  the  fiend,  but  at  the  last  moment  gets  off  scot-free  by 
the  interposition  of  a  saint,  or  by  some  absurd  evasion — 
such  as  whistling  the  gospel  he  has  bound  himself  not  to 
say,  or  refusing  to  comolete  his  bargain  at  the  fall  of  the 
leaf,  on  the  plea  that  the  sculptured  leaves  in  the  church 
are  still  on  their  boughs.  One  form  of  the  mediaeval 
compact  was  for  the  demon,  when  he  had  taught  his  black 
art  to  a  class  of  scholars,  to  seize  one  of  them  for  his  pro- 
fessional fee,  by  letting  them  all  run  for  their  lives  and 
catching  the  last — a  story  obviously  connected  with  another 
popular  saying :  '  devil  take  the  hindmost.'  But  even  at 
this  game  the  stupid  fiend  may  be  cheated,  as  is  told  in  the 
folk-lore  of  Spain  and  Scotland,  in  the  legends  of  the 
Marquds  de  Villano  and  the  Earl  of  Southesk,  who  attended 
the  Devil's  magic  bchools  at  Salamanca  and  Padua.  The 
apt  scholar  only  leaves  the  master  his  shadow  to  clutch  as 
following  hindmost  in  the  race,  and  with  this  unsubstantial 
payment  the  demon  must  needs  be   satisfied,  while  the 

'  Jamieson,  'Scottish  Dictionary,'  s.  v.  'coals';  R.  Hunt,  'Popular  Ro- 
mances,' 1st  ser.  p.  83. 
■'  Wuttke,  '  Volksaberglaube,'  p.  131. 


II' 


ifin 


W 


86 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


new-made  magician  goes  forth  free,  but  ever  after  shadow- 
less.^ 

It  seems  a  fair  inference  to  think  folk-lore  nearest  to  its 
source  where  it  has  its  highest  place  and  meaning.  Thus, 
if  some  old  rhyme  or  saying  has  in  one  place  a  solemn 
import  in  philosophy  or  religion,  while  elsewhere  it  lies  at 
the  level  of  the  nursery,  there  is  some  ground  for  treating 
the  serious  version  as  the  more  original,  and  the  playful  one 
as  its  mere  lingering  survival.  The  argument  is  not  safe, 
but  yet  is  not  to  be  quite  overlooked.  For  instance, 
there  are  two  poems  kept  in  remembrance  among  the 
modem  Jews,  and  printed  at  the  end  of  their  book  of  Pass- 
over services  in  Hebrew  and  English.  One  is  that  known 
as  Kna  nn  (Chad  gady&) :  it  begins,  '  A  kid,  a  kid,  my 
father  bought  for  two  pieces  of  money ; '  and  it  goes  on  to 
tell  how  a  cat  came  and  ate  the  kid,  and  a  dog  came  and  bit 
the  cat,  and  so  on  to  the  end. — '  Then  came  the  Holy  One, 
blessed  be  He  I  and  slew  the  angel  of  death,  who  slew  the 
butcher,  who  killed  the  ox,  that  drank  the  water,  that 
quenched  the  fire,  that  burnt  the  stick,  that  beat  the  dog, 
that  bit  the  cat,  that  ate  the  kid,  that  my  father  bought  for 
two  pieces  of  money,  a  kid,  a  kid.'  This  composition  is  in 
the  '  Sepher  Haggadah,'  and  is  looked  on  by  some  Jews  as 
a  parable  concerning  the  past  and  future  of  the  Holy  Land. 
According  to  one  interpretation,  Palestine,  the  kid,  is  de- 
voured by  Babylon  the  cat;  Babylon  is  overthrown  by 
Persia,  Persia  by  Greece,  Greece  by  Eome,  till  at  last  the 
Turks  prevail  in  the  land  ;  but  the  Edomites  (i.  e.  the 
nations  of  Europe)  shall  drive  out  the  Turks,  the  angel  of 
death  shall  destroy  the  enemies  of  Israel,  and  his  children 
shall  be  restored  under  the  rule  of  Messiah.  Irrespectively 
of  any  such  particular  interpretation,  the  solemnity  of  the 
ending  may  incline  us  to  think  that  we  really  have  the  com- 
position here  in  something  like  its  first  form,  and  that  it 

*  Rochholz,  'DeutscherGlaubeund  Brauch,'vol.  i.  p.  120  ;  R.  Chambers, 
'  Popular  Rhymes  of  Scotland,'  Miscellaneous ;  Grimm,  pp.  969,  976 ; 
Wuttke,  p.  115. 


,:l 


„ll! 


i! 


fter  shadow- 


earest  to  its 
aing.  Thus, 
ce  a  solemn 
ere  it  lies  at 
for  treating 
e  playful  one 
is  not  safe, 
or  instance, 

among  the 
ook  of  Pass- 
that  known 
,  a  kid,  my 
;  goes  on  to 
came  and  bit 
3  Holy  One, 
rho  slew  the 

water,  that 
eat  the  dog, 
r  bought  for 
>osition  is  in 
jme  Jews  as 

Holy  Land. 

kid,  is  de- 
srthrown  by 

at  last  the 
es  (i.e.  the 
the  angel  of 
his  children 
respectively 
nnity  of  the 

ve  the  com- 

and  that  it 

R.  Chambers, 
pp.  969,   976; 


SURVIVAL  IN  OULTUBE. 


87 


was  written  to  convey  a  mystic  meaning.  If  so,  then  it 
follows  that  our  familiar  nursery  tale  of  the  old  woman  who 
couldn't  get  her  kid  (or  pig)  over  the  stile,  and  wouldn't 
get  home  till  midnight,  must  be  considered  a  broken-down 
adaptation  of  this  old  Jewish  poem.  The  other  composition 
is  a  counting-poem,  and  begins  thus : 

*  Who  knoweth  one  ?    I  (saith  Israel)  know  One  : 

One  is  God,  who  is  over  heaven  and  earth. 
Who  knoweth  two  ?    I  (saith  Israel)  know  two : 
Two  tables  of  the  covenant ;  but  One  is  our  God  who  is  over 
the  heavens  and  the  earth.' 

(And  so  forth,  accumulating  up  to  the  last  verse,  which 
is-) 

'  Who  knoweth  thirteen  ?  I  (saith  Israel)  know  thirteen : 
Thirteen  divine  attributes,  twelve  tribes,  eleven  stars,  ten  com- 
mandments, nine  months  preceding  childbirth,  eight  days  pre- 
ceding circumcision,  seven  days  of  the  week,  six  books  of  the 
Mishnah,  five  books  of  the  Law,  four  matrons,  three  patriarchs, 
two  tables  of  the  covenant ;  but  One  is  our  God  who  is  over  the 
heavens  and  the  earth.' 

This  is  one  of  a  family  of  counting-poems,  apparently 
held  in  much  favour  in.  mediaeval  Christian  times ;  for  they 
are  not  yet  quite  forgotten  in  country  places.  An  old  Latin 
version  runs :  '  Unus  est  Deus,'  &c.j  and  one  of  the  still- 
8Ui*viving  English  forms  begins, '  One's  One  all  alone,  and 
evermore  shall  be  so,'  thence  reckoning  on  as  far  as 
'  Twelve,  the  twelve  apostles.'  Here  both  the  Jewish  and 
Christian  forms  are  or  have  been  serious,  so  it  is  possible 
that  the  Jew  may  have  imitated  the  Christian,  but  the 
nobler  form  of  the  Hebrew  poem  here  again  gives  it  a 
claim  to  be  thought  the  earlier.^ 

The  old  proverbs  brought  down  by  long  inheritance  into 
our  modem  talk  are  far  from  being  insignificant  in  them- 
selves, for  their  wit  is  often  as  fresh,  and  their  wisdom  as 

*  Mendes,  'Service  for  the  First  Nights  of  Passover,'  London,  1862  (in 
the  Jewish  interpretation,  the  word  shunra, — 'cat,'  is  compared  with 
Shindr).    Halliwell,  '  Nursery  Rhymes,'  p.  288  ;  *  Popular  Rhymes,'  p,  6. 


lii 


88 


SURVIVAL  IN  OULTUEB. 


m 


!!■ 


pertinent,  as  it  ever  was.  Beyond  these  practical  qualities, 
proverbs  are  instructive  for  the  place  in  ethnography  which 
they  occupy.  Their  range  in  civilization  is  limited ;  they 
seem  scarcely  to  belong  to  the  lowest  tribes,  but  appear 
first  in  a  settled  form  among  some  of  the  higher  savages. 
The  Fijians,  who  were  found  a  few  years  since  living  in  what 
archeeologists  might  call  the  upper  Stone  Age,  have  some 
well-marked  proverbs.  They  laugh  at  want  of  forethought 
by  the  saying  that  '  The  Nakondo  people  cut  the  mast 
first '  (i.  e.  before  they  had  built  the  canoe) ;  and  when  a 
poor  man  looks  wistfully  at  what  he  cannot  buy,  they  say, 
'  Becalmed,  and  looking  at  the  fish.'  ^  Among  the  list  of 
the  New  Zealanders*  *  whakatauki,'  or  proverbs,  one  de- 
scribes a  lazy  glutton :  *  Deep  throat,  but  shallow  sinews ; ' 
another  says  that  the  lazy  often  profit  by  the  work  of  the  in- 
dustrious :  '  The  large  chips  made  by  Hardwood  fall  to  the 
share  of  Sit-still ; '  a  third  moralizes  that  '  A  crooked  part 
of  a  stem  of  toetoe  can  be  seen ;  but  a  crooked  part  in  the 
heart  cannot  be  seen.'^  Among  the  Basutos  of  South 
Africa,  '  Water  never  gets  tired  of  running,'  is  a  reproach 
to  chatterers  ;  '  Lions  growl  while  they  are  eating,'  means 
that  there  are  people  who  never  will  enjoy  anything ;  '  The 
sowing-month  is  the  headache-month,'  describes  those 
lazy  folks  who  make  excuses  when  work  is  to  be  done  ; 
'  The  thief  eats  thunderbolts,'  means  that  he  will  bring 
down  vengeance  from  heaven  on  himself.^  West  African 
nations  are  especially  strong  in  proverbial  philosophy ;  so 
much  so  that  Captain  Burton  amused  himself  through  the 
rainy  season  at  Fernando  Po  in  compiling  a  volume  of 
native  proverbs,*  among  which  there  are  hundreds  at  about 
as  high  an  intellectual  level  as  those  of  Europe.  '  He  fled 
from  the  sword  and  hid  in  the  scabbard,'  is  as  good  as  our 


»  Williams,  'Fiji,'  vol.  i.  p.  110. 
»  Shortland.  'Traditions  of  N.  Z.'  p.  196. 
'  Caaalis,  '  Etudes  sur  la  langue  Stichuana.' 
•  E.  F.  Burton,  '  Wit  and  Wisdom  from  West  Africa.' 
vol.  ii.  p.  245. 


See  also  Waitz, 


cal  qualities, 
;raphy  which 
imited;  they 
,  but  appear 
^her  savages, 
ving  in  what 
e,  have  some 
:  forethought 
ut  the  mast 
and  when  a 
ay,  they  say, 
g  the  list  of 
rbs,  one  de- 
iow  sinews ; ' 
)rk  of  the  in- 
od  fall  to  the 
crooked  part 
d  part  in  the 
OS  of  South 
s  a  reproach 
bting,'  means 
thing;  'The 
sribes  those 
io  be  done  ; 
will  bring 
Vest  African 
ilosophy ;  so 
through  the 
a  volume  of 
eds  at  about 
e.  '  He  fled 
good  as  our 


See  also  Wait/., 


SUEVIVAL  IN  CULTUKE.  89 

'  Out  of  the  frying-pan  into  the  fire ; '  and  *  He  who  has 
only  his  eyebrow  for  a  cross-bow  can  never  kill  an  animal,' 
is  more  picturesque,  if  less  terse,  than  our  '  Hard  words 
break  no  bones.'  The  old  Buddhist  aphorism,  that  '  He 
who  indulges  in  enmity  is  like  one  who  throws  ashes  to 
windward,  which  come  back  to  the  same  place  and  cover 
him  all  over,'  is  put  with  less  prose  and  as  much  point  in 
the  negro  saying,  '  Ashes  fly  back  in  the  face  of  him  who 
throws  them.'  When  some  one  tries  to  settle  an  aflair  in 
the  absence  of  the  people  concerned,  the  negroes  will  object 
that '  You  can't  shave  a  man's  head  when  he  is  not  there,' 
while,  to  explain  that  the  master  is  not  to  be  judged  by  the 
folly  of  his  servant,  they  say,  'The  rider  is  not  a  fool 
because  the  horse  is.'  Ingratitude  is  alluded  to  in  '  The 
sword  knows  not  the  head  of  the  smith '  (who  made  it), 
and  yet  more  forcibly  elsewhere, '  When  the  calabash  had 
saved  them  (in  the  famine),  they  said,  let  us  cut  it  for  a 
drinking-cup.*  The  popular  contempt  for  poor  men's 
wisdom  is  put  very  neatly  in  the  maxim,  'When  a  poor 
man  makes  a  proverb  it  does  not  spread,'  while  the  very 
mention  of  making  a  proverb  as  something  likely  to  happen, 
shows  a  land  where  proverb-making  is  still  a  living  art. 
Transplanted  to  the  West  Indies,  the  African  keeps  up  thia 
art,  as  witness  these  sayings:  'Behind  dog  it  is  dog,  '^iw, 
before  dog  it  is  Mr.  Dog ; '  and  '  Toute  cabinette  tini 
maringouin ' — '  Every  cabin  has  its  mosquito.' 

The  proverb  has  not  changed  its  character  in  the  course 
of  history ;  but  has  retained  from  first  to  last  a  precisely 
definite  type.  The  proverbial  sayings  recorded  among  the 
higher  nations  of  the  world  are  to  be  reckoned  by  tens  of 
thousands,  and  have  a  large  and  well-known  literature  of 
their  own.  But  though  the  range  of  existence  of  proverbs 
extends  into  the  highest  levels  of  civilization,  this  is  scarcely 
true  of  their  development.  At  the  level  of  European  culture 
in  the  middle  ages,  they  hp  ve  indeed  'a  vast  importance  in 
popular  education,  but  their  period  of  actual  growth  seems 
already  at  an  end.     Cervantes  raised  the  proverb-monger's 


ifii!  - 


90 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


!    ! 


III! 


craft  to  a  pitch  it  never  surpassed ;  but  it  must  not  be  for- 
gotten that  the  incomparable  Sancho's  wares  were  mostly 
heirlooms ;  for  proverbs  were  even  then  sinking  to  remnants 
of  an  earlier  condition  of  society.  As  such,  they  survive 
among  ourselves,  who  go  on  using  much  the  same  relics  of 
ancestral  wisdom  as  came  out  of  the  squire's  inexhaustible 
budget,  old  saws  not  to  be  lightly  altered  or  made  anew  in 
our  changed  modern  times.  We  can  collect  and  use  the 
old  proverbs,  but  making  new  ones  has  become  a  feeble, 
spiritless  imitation,  like  our  attempts  to  invent  new  myths 
or  new  nursery  rhymes. 

Biddies  start  near  proverbs  in  the  history  of  civilization, 
and  they  travel  on  long  together,  though  at  last  towards 
different  ends.  By  riddles  are  here  meant  the  old-fashioned 
problems  with  a  real  answer  intended  to  be  discovered,  such 
as  the  typical  enigma  of  the  Sphinx,  but  not  the  modem 
verbal  conundrums  set  in  the  traditional  form  of  question 
and  answer,  as  a  way  of  bringing  in  a  jest  k  propos  of  no- 
thing. The  original  kind,  which  may  be  defined  as  '  sense- 
riddles,'  are  found  at  home  among  the  upper  savages,  and 
range  on  into  the  lower  and  middle  civilization :  and  while 
their  growth  stops  at  this  level,  many  ancient  specimens  have 
lasted  on  in  the  modern  nursery  and  by  the  cottage  fireside. 
There  is  a  plain  reason  why  riddles  should  belong  only  to 
the  higher  grades  of  savagery ;  their  making  requires  a  fair 
power  of  idesl  comparison,  and  knowledge  must  have  made 
considerable  advance  before  this  process  could  become  so 
familiar  as  to  fall  from  earnest  into  sport.  At  last,  in 
a  far  higher  state  of  culture,  riddles  begin  to  be  looked 
on  as  trifling,  their  growth  ceases,  and  they  only  survive 
in  remnants  for  children's  play.  Some  examples  chosen 
among  various  races,  from  savagery  upwards,  will  show 
more  exactly  the  place  in  mental  history  which  the  riddle 
occupies. 

The  following  are  specimens  from  a  collection  of  Zulu 
riddles,  recorded  with  quaintly  simple  native  comments  on 
the  philosophy  of  the  matter : — Q.  '  Guess  ye  some  men 


SURVIVAL  IN   CULTURE. 


01 


;  not  be  for- 
were  mostly 
to  remnants 
hey  survive 
me  relics  of 
lexhaustible 
ade  anew  in 
and  use  the 
ne  a  feeble, 
;  new  myths 

civilization, 

iast  towards 

Id-fashioned 

severed,  such 

the  modem 

of  question 

ropos  of  no- 

jd  as  '  sense- 

lavages,  and 

and  while 

cimens  have 

age  fireside. 

ong  only  to 

quires  a  fair 

have  made 

become  so 

At  last,  in 

be  looked 

nly  survive 

pies  chosen 

will  show 

the  riddle 

on  of  Zulu 
)mments  on 
some  men 


who  are  many  and  form  a  row ;  they  dance  the  wedding- 
dance,  adorned  in  white  hip-dresses?'  A.  'The  teeth; 
we  call  them  men  who  form  a  row,  for  the  toeth  stand 
like  men  who  are  made  ready  for  a  wedding-dance,  that 
they  may  dance  well.  When  we  say,  they  are  "  adorned 
with  white  hip-dresses,"  we  put  that  in,  that  people  may 
not  at  once  think  of  teeth,  but  be  drawn  away  from  them 
by  thinking,  "It  is  men  who  put  on  white  hip-dresses," 
and  continually  have  their  thoughts  fixed  on  men,'  &c. 
Q. '  Guess  ye  a  man  who  does  not  lie  down  at  night :  he 
lies  down  in  the  morning  until  the  sun  sets ;  he  then 
awakes,  and  works  all  night ;  he  does  not  work  by  day ; 
he  is  not  seen  when  he  works?*  A.  'The  closing-poles 
of  the  cattle-pen.'  Q.  '  Guess  ye  a  man  whom  men  do  not 
like  to  laugh,  for  it  is  known  that  his  laughter  is  a  very 
great  evil,  and  is  followed  by  lamentation,  and  an  end 
of  rejoicing.  Men  weep,  and  trees,  and  grass  ;  and  every- 
thing is  heard  weeping  in  the  tribe  where  he  laughs ; 
and  they  say  the  man  has  laughed  who  does  not  usually 
laugh V  A.' Fire.  It  is  called  a  man  that  what  is  said 
may  not  be  at  once  evident,  it  being  concealed  by  the 
word  "man."  Men  say  many  things,  searching  out  the 
meaning  in  rivalry,  and  missing  the  mark.  A  riddle  is 
good  when  it  is  not  discernible  at  once,'  &c.  ^  Among 
the  Basutos,  riddles  are  a  recognized  part  of  education, 
and  are  set  like  exercises  to  *  whole  company  of  puzzled 
children.  Q.  '  Do  you  know  what  throws  itself  from 
the  mountain-top  without  being  broken?'  ^.  'A  water- 
fall.' Q.  'There's  a  thing  that  travels  fast  without  legs 
or  wings,  and  no  cliff,  nor  river,  nor  wall  can  stop  it?' 
A.  'The  voice.'  Q.  'Name  the  ten  trees  with  ten  flat 
stones  on  the  top  of  them.'  A.  '  The  fingers.'  Q.  '  Who 
is  the  little  immovable  dumb  boy  who  is  dressed  up  warm 
in  the  day  and  left  naked  at  night?'  A.  'The  bed- 
clothes' peg.'''     From  East  Africa,  this  Swahili  riddle  is  an 

'  Callaway,  '  Nursery  Tales,  &c.  of  Zulus,'  vol.  i.  p.  364,  &c. 

'  Casalis,  '  fitudes  sur  la  langue  S«5chuana,'  p.  91 ;  '  Basutos,'  p.  337. 


f 


fa  SURVIVAL  IN   CULTURE. 

example:  Q.  'My  hen  has  laid  among  thorns?'  il.  'A 
pineapple.'^  From  West  Africa,  this  Yoruba  one:  'A 
long  slender  trading  woman  who  never  gets  to  market  1' 
A.  'A  oanoe  (it  stops  at  the  landing-place).'*^  In  Poly- 
nesia, the  Samoan  islanders  are  given  to  riddles.  Q. 
'There  are  four  brothers,  who  are  always  bearing  about 
their  father?*  A.  'The  Samoan  pillow,'  which  is  a  yard 
of  three- inch  bamboo  resting  on  four  legs.  Q.  '  A  white- 
headed  man  stands  above  the  fence,  and  reaches  to 
the  heavens?'  A.  'The  smoke  of  the  oven.'  Q.  'A 
man  who  stands  between  two  ravenous  fish?'  A.  'The 
tongue.'^  (There  is  a  Zulu  riddle  like  this,  which  com- 
pares the  tongue  to  a  man  living  in  the  midst  of  enemies 
fighting.)  The  following  are  old  Mexican  enigmas:  Q. 
'  What  ai'e  the  ten  stones  one  has  at  his  sides  ? '  A.  *  The 
finger-nails.'  Q.  'What  is  it  we  get  into  by  three  parts 
and  out  of  by  one?'  A.  *  A  shirt.'  Q.  'What  goes 
through  a  valley  and  drags  its  entrails  after  it?'  A.  '  A 
needle.'  * 

These  riddles  found  among  the  lower  races  do  not  differ 
at  all  in  nature  from  those  that  have  come  down,  sometimes 
modernized  in  the  setting,  into  the  nursery  lore  of  Europe. 
Thus  Spanish  children  still  ask, '  What  is  the  dish  of  nuts 
that  is  gathered  by  day,  and  scattered  by  night?'  (the 
stars.)  Our  English  riddle  of  the  pair  of  tongs:  'Long 
legs,  crooked  thighs,  little  head,  and  no  eyes,'  is  primitive 
enough  to  have  been  made  by  a  South  Sea  Islander.  The 
following  is  on  the  same  theme  as  one  of  the  Zulu  riddles : 
'  A  flock  of  white  sheep.  On  a  red  hill ;  Here  they  go,  there 
they  go ;  Now  they  stand  still  ? '  Another  is  the  very 
analogue  of  one  of  the  Aztec  specimens :  '  Old  Mother 
Twitchett  had  but  one  eye,  And  a  long  tail  which  she  let  fly ; 

«  Steere,  '  Swahili  Tales,'  p.  418. 

"  Burton,  *  Wit  and  Wisdom  from  West  Africa,*  p.  212. 

3  Turner,  ' Polynesia,"  p.  216.  See  Polack,  'New  Zealanders,' vol.  ii.  p. 
17L 

*  Sahagun,  '  Historia  de  Nueva  Espafia,'  in  Kingsborough's  Antiquities 
of  Mexico,'  vol.  vii.  p.  178. 


iV  il.  'A 
I  one :  ' A 
)  market  1' 
In  Poly- 
'iddles.  Q. 
ring  about 
i  is  a  yard 
'A  white- 
rcaohes  to 
a.'  Q.  'A 
•  A.  «The 
vhich  com- 
of  enemies 
ligmas :  Q. 
'  A.  'The 
three  parts 
What  goes 
b?'     A.  'A 

)  not  differ 
,  sometimes 
of  Europe, 
ish  of  nuts 
ght?'  (the 
igs :  '  Long 
i  primitive 
nder.  The 
lu  riddles : 
y  go,  there 
the  very 
Id  Mother 
she  let  fly ; 


jre,'  vol.  ii.  p. 
's  Antiquities 


BUBVIVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


03 


And  every  time  she  wont  over  a  gap,  She  loft  a  bit  of  her 
tail  in  a  trap  1 ' 

So  thoroughly  does  riddle-making  belong  to  the  mytho- 
logio  stuge  of  thought,  that  any  poet's  siinilo,  if  not  too  far- 
fetched, needs  only  inversion  to  bo  made  at  once  into  an 
(migma.  The  Hindu  calls  the  Sun  Saptftsva,  i.  e.  *  seven- 
horsed,'  while,  with  the  same  thought,  the  old  German  riddle 
asks,  '  What  is  the  chariot  drawn  by  seven  white  and  seven 
black  horses?'  (the  year,  drawn  by  the  seven  days  and 
nights  of  the  week. ')  Such,  too,  is  the  Greek  riddle  of  the 
two  sisters,  Day  and  Night,  who  give  birth  each  to  the  other, 
to  bo  born  of  her  again : 

Elcrl  KaalyvriTM  iirralf  S)V  ^  fila  rUrti 

Tiji»  irifiav,  nur^  ii  rtKoviT    virh  T^afit  Ttttvovrm  ; 

and  the  enigma  of  Kleoboulos,  with  its  other  like  fragments 
of  rudimentary  mythology : 

Efc  6  rroTTip,  iratdtr  ii  dvaitita'  r&v  b*  y    iKd(TT<f 
Iluibts  taai  rpt^Kovr   avdixa  tlSot  i\ov(Tat' 
*Hi  fjtiv  "KtvKal  taaiv  liuv,  ^  d'  a^c  fiiXaivai' 
Addi/arot  d*  t   ioviaai  dno<f>0ivovatv  dnaaai. 

'  One  is  the  father,  and  twelve  the  children,  and,  bom  unto  each  one, 
Maidens  thirty,  whose  form  in  twain  is  parted  asunder. 
White  to  behold  on  the  one  side,  black  to  behold  on  Lhe  other, 
All  immortal  in  being,  yet  doomed  to  dwindle  and  perish.'^ 

Such  questions  as  these  may  be  fairly  guessed  now  as  in  old 
times,  and  must  be  distinguished  from  that  scarcer  class 
which  require  the  divination  of  some  unlikely  event  to  solve 
them.  Of  such  the  typical  example  is  Samson's  riddle, 
and  there  is  an  old  Scandinavian  one  like  it.  The  story  is 
that  Gestr  found  a  duck  sitting  on  her  nest  in  an  ox's 
homed  skull,  and  thereupon  propounded  a  riddle,  describing 
with  characteristic  Northman's  metaphor  the  ox  with  its 
horns  fancied  as  already  made  into  drinking-horns.  The 
following  translation  does  not  exaggerate  the  quaintness  of 


'  Grimm,  p.  699. 


'  Diog.  Laert.  i.  91 ;  Athenagoras,  x.  451. 


'"'■i 


94 


SUBVIVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


iiij'i 


W   0 


[*■  i 


ill 


r'v      ii'i'" 


the  original: — 'Joying  in  children  the  bill-goose  grew, 
And  her  building-timbers  together  drew ;  The  biting  grass- 
shearer  screened  her  bed,  With  the  maddening  drink-stream 
overhead.'  ^  Many  of  the  old  oracular  responses  are  puzzles 
of  precisely  this  kind.  Such  is  the  story  of  the  Delphic 
oracle,  which  ordered  Temenos  to  find  a  man  with  three 
eyes  to  guide  the  army,  which  injunction  he  fulfilled  by 
meeting  a  one-eyed  man  on  horseback.  ^  It  is  curious  to 
find  this  idea  again  in  Scandinavia,  where  Odin  sets  King 
Heidrek  a  riddle,  '  Who  are  they  two  that  fare  to  the 
Thing  with  three  eyes,  ten  feet,  and  one  tail  ? '  the  answer 
being,  the  one-eyed  Odin  himself  on  his  eight-footed  horse 
Sleipnir.^ 

The  close  bearing  of  the  doctrine  of  survival  on  the  study 
of  manners  and  customs  is  constantly  coming  into  view 
in  ethnographic  research.  It  seems  scarcely  too  much  to 
assert,  once  for  all,  that  meaningless  customs  must  be  sur- 
vivals, that  they  had  a  practical,  or  at  least  ceremonial, 
intention  when  and  where  they  first  arose,  but  are  now  fallen 
into  absurdity  from  having  been  carried  on  into  a  new  state 
of  society,  where  their  original  sense  has  been  discarded. 
Of  course,  now  customs  introduced  in  particular  ages  may 
be  ridiculous  or  wicked,  but  as  a  rule  they  have  discernible 
motives.  Explanations  of  this  kind,  by  recourse  to  some 
forgotten  meaning,  seem  on  the  whole  to  account  best  for 
obscure  customs  which  some  have  set  down  to  mere  out- 
breaks of  spontaneous  folly.  A  certain  Zimmermann,  who 
published  a  heavy  '  Geographical  History  of  Mankind '  in 
the  last  century,  remarks  as  follows  on  the  prevalence  of 
similar  nonsensical  and  stupid  customs  in  distant  coun- 

*  Mannhardt's  'Zeitschr.  fiir  Deutsche  Mythologie,'  vol.  iii.  p.  2,  &c. : 
'  Nog  er  forthun  nOsgds  vaxin, 
Barngiorn  su  er  bar  butimbr  saman  ; 
Hlifthu  henni  halms  bitsk&lmir, 
Tho  l&  drykkjar  drynhrOnn  yfir.' 

^  See  Grote,  '  Hist,  of  Greece,'  vol.  ii.  p.  5. 
^  Mannhardt's  *  Zeitschr.'  1.  c. 


m 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


95 


[oose  grew, 
iting  grasB- 
'ink-streftm 
are  puzzles 
he  Delphic 
with  three 
fulfilled  by 
curious  to 
a  sets  King 
^are  to  the 
the  answer 
)oted  horse 

n  the  study 

into  view 

)o  much  to 

lust  be  sur- 

eeremonial, 

I  now  fallen 

a  new  state 

discarded. 

ages  may 

discernible 

se  to  some 

nt  best  for 

mere  out- 

nann,  who 

mkind'  in 

valence  of 

ant  coun- 

p.  2,  &c.  : 


tries: — 'For  if  two  clever  heads  may,  each  for  himself,  hit 
upon  a  clever  invention  or  discovery,  then  it  is  far  likelier, 
considering  the  much  larger  total  of  fools  and  blockheads, 
that  like  fooleries  should  be  given  to  two  far-distant  lands. 
If,  then,  the  inventive  fool  be  likewise  a  man  of  importance 
and  influence,  as  is,  indeed,  an  extremely  frequent  case, 
then  both  nations  adopt  a  similar  folly,  and  then,  centuries 
after,  some  historian  goes  through  it  to  extract  his  evidence 
for  the  derivation  of  these  two  nations  one  from  the 
other.'  ^ 

Strong  views  as  to  the  folly  of  mankind  seem  to  have 
been  in  the  air  about  the  time  of  the  French  Revolution. 
Lord  Chesterfield  was  no  doubt  an  extremely  different 
person  from  our  German  philosopher,  but  they  were  quite 
at  one  as  to  the  absurdity  of  cuf  toms.  Advising  his  son 
as  to  the  etiquette  of  courts,  the  Earl  writes  thus  to  him : — 
'For  example,  it  is  respectful  to  bow  to  the  King  of 
England,  it  is  disrespectful  to  bow  to  the  King  of  France; 
it  is  the  rule  to  courtesy  to  the  Emperor  ;  and  the  prostra- 
tion of  the  whole  body  is  required  by  Eastern  Monarchs. 
These  are  established  ceremonies,  and  must  be  complied 
with ;  but  why  they  were  established,  I  defy  sense  and 
reason  to  tell  us.  It  is  the  same  among  all  ranks,  where 
certain  customs  are  received,  and  must  necessarily  be  coin- 
plied  with,  though  by  no  means  the  result  of  sense  and 
reason.  As  for  instance,  the  very  absurd,  though  almost 
universal  custom  of  drinking  people's  healths.  Can  there 
be  anything  in  the  world  less  relative  to  any  other  man's 
health,  than  my  drinking  a  glass  of  wine  ?  Common  sense, 
certainly,  never  pointed  it  out,  but  yet  common  sense  tells 
me  I  must  conform  to  it.'^  Now,  though  it  might  be 
difficult  enough  to  make  sense  of  the  minor  details  of 
court  etiquette,  Lord   Chesterfield's  example   from   it   of 


*  E.  A.  W.  Zimmermann,  '  Geographische  Gteschichte  des  Menschen,'  &c., 
1778-83,  vol.  iii.  See  Professor  Rolleston's  Inaugural  Address,  British 
Association,  1870. 

'  Earl  of  Chesterfield,  '  Letters  to  his  Son,'  vol.  ii.  No.  Ixviii. 


96 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTUHE. 


it  "■' 


JU  i:i| M. 


m' 


m 


!  :i!; 


I  li'r' 

m 

;;: 


the  irrationality  of  mankind  is  a  singularly  unlucky  one. 
Indeed,  if  any  one  were  told  to  set  forth  in  few  words  the 
relations  of  the  people  to  their  rulers  in  different  states  of 
society,  he  might  answer  that  men  grovel  on  their  faces 
before  the  King  of  Siam,  kneel  on  one  knee  or  uncover 
before  a  European  monarch,  and  shake  the  hand  of  the 
President  of  the  United  States  as  though  it  were  a  pump- 
handle.  These  are  ceremonies  at  once  intelligible  and 
significant.  Lord  Chesterfield  is  more  fortunate  in  his 
second  instance,  for  the  custom  of  drinking  healths  is  really 
of  obscure  origin.  Yet  it  is  closely  connected  with  an 
ancient  rite,  practically  absurd  indeed,  but  done  with  a 
conscious  and  serious  intention  which  lands  it  quite  outside 
the  region  of  nonsense.  This  is  the  custom  of  pouring  out 
libations  and  drinking  at  ceremonial  banquets  to  gods  and 
the  dead.  Thus  the  old  Northmen  drank  the  '  minni  '  of 
Thor,  Odin,  and  Freya,  and  of  kings  likewise  at  their 
funerals.  The  custom  did  not  die  out  with  the  conversion 
of  the  Scandinavian  and  Teutonic  nations.  Such  formulas 
as  '  God's  minne  1  *  'a  bowl  to  God  in  heaven ! '  are  on 
record,  while  in  like  manner  Christ,  Mary,  and  the  Saints 
were  drunk  to  in  place  of  heathen  gods  and  heroes,  and 
the  habit  of  drinking  to  the  dead  and  the  living  at  the 
same  feast  and  in  similar  terms  goes  far  to  prove  here  a 
common  origin  for  both  ceremonies.  The  'minne'  was 
at  once  love,  memory,  and  the  thought  of  the  absent, 
and  it  long  survived  in  England  in  the  *  minnying '  or 
'  mynde '  days,  on  which  the  memory  of  the  dead  was  cele- 
brated by  services  or  banquets.  Such  evidence  as  this 
fairly  justifies  the  writers,  older  and  newer,  who  have 
treated  these  ceremonial  drinking  usages  as  in  their  nature 
smrificial.^  As  for  the  practice  of  simply  drinking  the 
health  of  living  men,  its  ancient  history  reaches  us  from 
several  districts  inhabited  by  Aryan  nations.     The  Greeks 


*  See  Hylten-CavalliuB,   'Wilrend  och  Wirdarne,'  vol.  i.  pp.  161-70; 
Grimm,  pp.  52-6,  1201 ;  Brand,  vol.  ii.  pp.  814,  325,  &c. 


liili! 

nil. 


i  i 

! 


^lIVIval  in  culture. 


97 


ilucky  one. 
r  words  the 
it  states  of 
their  faces 
or  uncover 
and  of  the 
re  a  pump- 
ligible  and 
aate  in  his 
bhs  is  really 
}d  with  an 
[one  with  a 
uite  outside 
pouring  out 
to  gods  and 
I '  minni '  of 
ise  at  their 
I  conversion 
ich  formulas 
n  I '   are  on 
1  the  Saints 
heroes,  and 
ving  at  the 
rove  here  a 
ninne'  was 
the  absent, 
nnying'  or 
id  was  cele- 
nce  as  this 
who  have 
leir  nature 
■inking  the 
les  us  from 
The  Greeks 

I.  pp.  161-70  ; 


in  symposium  drank  to  one  another,  and  the  Romans 
adopted  the  habit  (irpovlveiv,  propinare,  Grseco  more  bibere). 
The  Goths  cried  '  hails  I '  as  they  pledged  each  other,  as 
we  have  it  in  the  curious  first  line  of  the  veraes  '  De 
conviviis  barbaris '  in  the  Latin  Anthology,  which  sets 
down  the  shouts  of  a  Gothic  drinking-bout  of  the  fifth 
century  or  so,  in  words  which  still  partly  keep  their  sense 
to  an  English  ear : 

'  Inter  eils  Goticum  scapiamatziaia  drincan 
Non  audet  quisquam  dignos  educere  versus.' 

As  for  ourselves,  though  the  old  drinking  salutation  of 
'w£es  heel?'  is  no  longer  vulgar  English,  the  formula  / 
remains  with  us,  stiffened  into  a  noun.  On  the  whole, 
there  is  presumptive  though  not  conclusive  evidence  that 
the  custom  of  drinking  healths  to  the  living  is  historically 
related  to  the  religious  rite  of  drinking  to  the  gods  and 
the  dead. 

Let  us  now  put  the  theory  of  survival  to  a  somewhat 
severe  test,  by  seeking  from  it  some  explanation  of  the 
existence,  in  practice  or  memory,  within  the  limits  of 
modern  civilized  society,  of  three  remarkable  groups  of 
customs  which  civilized  ideas  totally  fail  to  account  for. 
Though  we  may  not  succeed  in  giving  clear  and  absolute 
explanations  of  their  motives,  at  any  rate  it  is  a  step  in 
advance  to  be  able  to  refer  their  origins  to  savage  or 
barbaric  antiquity.  Looking  at  these  customs  from  the 
modern  practical  point  of  view,  one  is  ridiculous,  the  others 
are  atrocious,  and  all  are  senseless.  The  first  is  the  prac-  '  '  ' 
tice  of  salutation  on  sneezing,  the  second  the  rite  of  laying 
the  foundations  of  a  building  on  a  human  victim,  the  third  \ 
the  prejudice  against  saving  a  drowning  man. 

In  interpreting  the  customs  connected  with  sneezing,  it 
is  needful  to  recognize  a  prevalent  doctrine  of  the  lov/er 
races,  of  which  a  full  account  will  be  given  in  another 
chapter.  As  a  man's  soul  is  considered  to  go  in  and  out 
of  his  body,  so  it  is  with  other  spirits,  particularly  such  as 


VOL.  1. 


u 


98 


SURVIVAL   IN   CULTURE. 


I,i!. 


I*- 

I 

I 

\ 

mm 


enter  into  patients  and  possess  them  or  afflict  them  vrith 
disease.  Among  the  less  cultured  races,  the  connexion  of 
this  idea  with  sneezing  is  best  shown  among  the  Zulus,  a 
people  firmly  persuaded  that  kindly  or  angry  spirits  of  the 
dead  hover  about  them,  do  them  good  or  harm,  stand 
visibly  before  them  in  dreams,  enter  into  them,  and  cause 
diseases  in  them.  The  following  particulars  are  abridged 
from  the  native  statements  taken  down  by  Dr.  Callaway : — 
When  a  Zulu  sneezes,  he  will  say,  'I  am  now  blessed. 
The  Idhlozi  (ancestral  spirit)  is  with  me ;  it  has  come  to 
me.  Let  me  hasten  and  praise  it,  for  it  is  it  which  causes 
me  to  sneeze ! '  So  he  praises  the  manes  of  his  family, 
asking  for  cattle,  and  wives,  and  blessings.  Sneezing  is  a 
sign  that  a  sick  person  will  be  restored  to  health ;  he 
returns  thanks  after  sneezing,  saying, '  Ye  people  of  ours, 
I  have  gained  that  prosperity  which  I  wanted.  Continue 
to  look  on  me  with  favour!'  Sneezing  reminds  a  man 
that  he  should  name  the  Itongo  (ancestral  spirit)  of  his 
people  without  delay,  because  it  is  the  Itongo  which  causes 
him  to  sneeze,  that  he  may  perceive  by  sneezing  that  the 
Itongo  is  with  him.  If  a  man  is  ill  and  does  not  sneeze, 
those  who  come  to  him  ask  whether  he  has  sneezed  or  not ; 
if  he  has  not  sneezed,  they  murmur,  saying, '  The  disease 
is  great ! '  If  a  child  sneezes,  they  say  to  it,  '  Grow !  *  it 
is  a  sign  of  health.  So  then,  it  is  said,  sneezing  among 
black  men  gives  a  man  strength  to  remember  that  the 
Itongo  has  entered  into  him  and  abides  with  him.  The 
Zulu  diviners  or  sorcerers  are  very  apt  to  sneeze,  which 
they  regard  as  an  indication  of  the  presence  of  the  spirits, 
whom  they  adore  by  saying  '  Makosi ! '  (i.  e.  lords  or 
masters).  It  is  a  suggestive  example  of  the  transition  of 
such  customs  as  these  from  one  religion  to  another,  that 
the  Amakosa,  who  used  to  call  on  their  divine  ancestor 
Utixo  when  they  sneezed,  since  their  conversion  to  Chris- 
tianity say,  '  Preserver,  look  upon  me  ! '  or,  '  Creator  of 
heaven  and  earth  ! '  ^    Elsewhere  in  Africa,  similar  ideas 

'  Cnlluway,  -Religion  of  Ania/ulu,'  pp.  64,  •222-5,  263. 


SUEVIVAL  IN  CULTUEB. 


99 


them  -with 
inexion  of 
LO  Zulus,  a 
irits  of  the 
irm,  stand 
,  and  cause 
e  abridged 
allaway : — 
(W  blessed, 
las  come  to 
hich  causes 
his  family, 
leezing  is  a 

health;  he 
pie  of  ours, 
.  Continue 
inds  a  man 
pirit)  of  his 
which  causes 
Lug  that  the 
not  sneeze, 

ezed  or  not ; 

The  disease 
'Growl'  it 


B3. 


are    mentioned.      Sir    Thomas    Browne,  in   his   'Vulgar 
EiTors,'  made  well  known  the  story  that  when  the  King 
of  Monomotapa  sneezed,  acclamations  of  blessing  passed 
from  mouth  to  mouth  through  the  city ;  but  he  should 
have  mentioned  that  Godigno,  from  whom  the  original 
account  is  taken,  said  that  this  took  place  when  the  king 
drank,  or  coughed,  or  sneezed.^    A  later  account  from  the 
other  side  of  the  continent  is  more  to  the  purpose.     In 
Guinea,  in  the  last  century,  when  a  principal  personage 
sneezed,  all  present  fell  on  their  knees,  kissed  the  earth, 
clapped  their  hands,  and  wished  him  all  happiness  and 
prosperity.^    With  a  diflferent  idea,  the   negroes  of  Old 
Calabar,  when  a  child  sneezes,  will  sometimes  exclaim, 
'  Far  from    you ! '    with    an    appropriate    gesture   as    if 
throwing  off  some  evil.^    Polynesia  is  another  region  where 
the  sneezing  salutation  is  well  marked.     In  New  Zealand, 
a  charm  was  said  to  prevent  evil  when  a  child  sneezed ;  * 
if  a  Samoan  sneezed,  the  bystanders  said, '  Life  to  you  I '  ® 
while  in  the  Tongan  group  a  sneeze  on  the  starting  of  an 
expedition  was  a  most  evil  presage.®    A  curious  American 
instance  dates  from  Hernando  de  Soto's  famous  expedition 
into  Florida,  when  Guachoya,  a  native  chief,  came  to  pay 
him   a    visit.      'While  this  was  going  on,  the   cacique 
Guachoya  gave  a  great  sneeze ;  the  gentlemen  who  had 
come  with  him  and  were  lining  the  walls  of  the  haU  among 
the  Spaniards  there  all  at  once  bowing  their  heads,  opening 
their  arms  and  closing  them  again,  and  making  other 
gestures  of  great  veneration  and  respect,  saluted  him  with 
different  words,  all  directed  to  one  end,  saying,  "  The  Sun 
guard  thee,  be  with  thee,   enlighten  thee,  magnify  thee, 
protect  thee,  favour  thee,  defend  thee,  prosper  thee,  save 
thee,"  and  other  like  phrases,  as  the  words  came,  and  for  a 

*  Godignus,  'Vita  Patris  Gonzali Sylveriee.*  Col.  Agripp.  1616  ;  lib.  ii. c.  x. 

*  Bosman,  '  Guinea,'  letter  xviii.  in  Pinkerton,  vol.  xvi.  p.  478. 
'  Burton,  'Wit  and  Wisdom  from  West  Africa,'  p.  373. 

*  Shortland,  'Trads.  of  New  Zealand,' p.  131. 

°  Turner,  'Polynesia,'  p.  348  ;  sec  also  Williams,  'Fiji,'  vol.  i.  p.  250. 
°  Mariner,  '  Tonga  Is.'  vol.  i.  p.  456. 

H  2 


■if.    ;.i 


U- 


ijiiii 


100 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


good  space  there  lingered  the  murmur  of  these  words  among 
them,  whereat  the  governor  wondering  said  to  the  gentle- 
men and  captains  with  him,  "  Do  you  not  see  that  all  the 
world  is  one?"  This  matter  was  well  noted  among  the 
Spaniai'ds,  that  among  so  barbarous  a  people  should  be 
used  the  same  ceremonies,  or  greater,  than  among  those 
who  hold  themselves  to  be  very  civilized.  Whence  it  may 
be  believed  that  this  manner  of  salutation  is  natural  among 
all  nations,  and  not  caused  by  a  pestilence,  as  is  vulgarly 
said,'  &c.^ 

In  Asia  and  Europe,  the  sneezing  superstition  extends 
through  a  wide  range  of  race,  age,  and  country.^  Among 
the  passages  relating  to  it  in  the  classic  ages  of  Greece  and 
Rome,  the  following  are  some  of  the  most  characteristic, — 
the  lucky  sneeze  of  Telemachos  in  the  Odyssey  ; '  the 
soldier's  sneeze  and  the  shout  of  adoration  to  the  god  which 
rose  along  the  ranks,  and  which  Xenophon  appealed  to  as 
a  favourable  omen;*  Aristotle's  remark  that  people  con- 
sider a  sneeze  as  divine  {t6v  fitv  Ttrapfibv  dtbv  f/yovixeda  elvat), 
but  not  a  cough,^  &c. ;  the  Greek  epigram  on  the  man  with 
the  long  nose,  who  did  not  say  Zeu  (rwaov  when  he  sneezed, 
for  the  noise  was  too  far  off  for  him  to  hear ;"  Petronius 
Arbiter's  mention  of  the  custom  of  saying  '  Salve ! '  to  one 
who  sneezed;''  and  Pliny's  question,  'Cur  sternutamentis 
salutamus  ? '  apropos  of  which  he  remarks  that  even  Tibe- 
rius Caesar,  that  saddest  of  men,  exacted  this  observance.* 


'  Garcilaso  de  la  Vega,  '  Hist,  de  la  Florida,'  vol.  iii.  ch.  xli. 

'  Among  dissertations  on  the  subject,  see  especially  Sir  Thos.  Browne, 
'  Pseudodoxia  Epidemica '  (Vulgar  EiTors),  book  iv.  chap.  ix. ;  Brand, 
'  Popular  Antiquities,'  vol.  iii.  p.  119,  &c.  ;  R.  G.  Haliburton,  *  New 
Materials  for  the  History  of  Man.'  Halifax,  N.  S.  1863  ;  '  Encyclopsedia 
Britannica,'  (5"^  ed.)  art.  '  sneezing ; '  Wernsdorf,  '  De  Ritu  Sternutantibus 
bene  precandi.'    Leipzig,  1741 ;  see  also  Grimm,  D.  M.  p.  1070,  note. 

'  Homer,  Odyss.  xvii.  541. 

*  Xenophon,  Anabasis,  iii.  2,  9. 

'  Aristot.  Problem,  xxxiii.  7. 

"  Anthologia  Grseca,  Brunck,  vol.  iii.  p.  95. 

^  Petron.  Arb.  Sat.  98. 

'  Plin.  xxviii.  5. 


III!  i 

I  ^ ' 
I  j ' 


SURVIVAL  IN   CULTURE. 


101 


)rds  among 
the  gentle- 
hat  all  the 
among  the 

should  be 
long  those 
ince  it  may 
ural  among 

is  vulgarly 

Lon  extends 
f?    Among 
Greece  and 
icteristic, — 
'ssey  ;  *  the 
3  god  which 
pealed  to  as 
people  con- 
av/xe^a  ilvai), 
e  man  with 
le  sneezed, 
Petronius 
ve  I '  to  one 
'nutamentis 
even  Tibe- 
)bservance.* 


li. 

Ihos.  Browne, 
ix. ;   Brand, 

burton,  'New 
Encyclopaedia 
ternutantibus 

170,  note. 


Similar  rites  of  sneezing  have  long  been  observed  in  Eastern 

Asia.^     When  a  Hindu  sneezes,  bystanders  say,  '  Live ! ' 

and  the  sneezer  replies,  *  With  you  1  *   It  is  an  ill  omen,  to 

which  among  others  the    Thugs   paid    great  regard  on 

starting  ou  an  expedition,  and  which  even  compelled  them 

to  let  the  travellers  with  them  escape.^ 

The  Jewish  sneezing  formula  is,  'Tobim  chayiml'  i.e. 

'  Good  life  !'^    The  Moslem  says,  '  Praise  to  Allah!'  when 

he  sneezes,  and  his  friends  compliment  him  with  proper 

formulas,  a  custom  which  seems  to  be  conveyed  from  race 

to   race  wherever  Islam   extends.*      Lastly,   the   custom 

ranges  through  mediaeval  into  modem  Europe.     To  cite  old 

German  examples, '  Die  Heiden  nicht  endorften  niesen,  dft 

man  doch  sprichet "  Nu  helfiu  Got  ?" '  '  Wir  sprechen,  swer 

niuset,  Got  helfe  dir.'  ^     For  a  Norman  French  instance  in 

England,  the  following  lines  (a.d.  1100)  may  serve,  which 

show  our  old  formula  '  wses  hsel  I '  ('  may  you  be  well ! ' — 

'  wassail  1 ' )  used  also  to   avert  being  taken  ill  after  a 

sneeze : — 

'E  pur  une  feyze  esternuer 
Tantot  quident  mal  trouer, 
Si  uesheil  ne  diez  aprez.'  * 

In  the  'Rules  of  Civility'  (a.d.  1685,  translated  from  the 
French)  we  read : — '  If  his  lordship  chances  to  sneeze,  you 
are  not  to  bawl  out,  "  God  bless  you,  sii*,"  but,  pulling  off 
your  hat,  bow  to  him  handsomely,  and  make  that  obsecra- 
tion to  yourself.''     It  is  noticed  that  Anabaptists  and 

'  Noel,  '  Die.  des  Origines  ; '  Migne,  '  Die.  des  Superstitions,'  &c.  ; 
Bastian,  '  Oestl.  Asien,'  vol.  ii.  p.  129. 

"  Ward,  'Hindoos,'  vol.  i.  p.  142  ;  Dubois,  'Peuples  de  I'lnde,'  vol.  i.  p. 
465  ;  Sleeman,  '  Ramaseeana,'  p.  120. 

'  Buxtorf,  '  Lexicon  Chaldaicum  ;'  Tendlau,  'SprichwOrter,  &c.  Deutsch- 
.Tudischer  Vorzeit.'     Fraukf.  a.  M.,  1860,  p.  142. 

*  Lane,  '  Modern  Egyptians,'  vol.  i.  p.  282.  See  Grant,  in  'Tr.  Eth.  Soc' 
vol.  iii.  p.  90. 

'  Grimm,  '  D.  M.'  pp.  1070,  1110. 

'  '  Manuel  des  Pecch^s,'  in  Wedgwood,  '  Die.  English  Etymologj-,'  s.  v. 
'  wassail.' 

'  Brand,  vol.  iii.  p.  126. 


102 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


m 


111 


(ill! 


Quakers  rejected  these  with  other  salutations,  but  they 
remained  in  the  code  of  English  good  manners  among  high 
and  low  till  half  a  century  or  so  ago,  and  are  so  little  for- 
gotten now,  that  most  people  still  see  the  point  of  the  story 
of  the  fiddler  and  his  wife,  where  his  sneeze  and  her  hearty 
'  God  bless  you  1 '  brought  about  the  removal  of  the  fiddle 
case.  'Gott  hilf!'  may  still  be  heard  in  Germany,  and 
'  Felicitk  1 '  in  Italy. 

It  is  not  strange  that  the  existence  of  these  absurd 
customs  should  have  been  for  ages  a  puzzle  to  curious 
enquirers.  Especially  the  legend-mongers  took  the  matter 
in  hand,  and  their  attempts  to  devise  historical  explanations 
are  on  record  in  a  group  of  philosophic  myths, — Greek, 
Jewish,  Christian.  Prometheus  prays  for  the  preservation 
of  his  artificial  man,  when  it  gives  the  first  sign  of  life  by  a 
sneeze ;  Jacob  prays  that  man's  soul  may  not,  as  heretofore, 
depart  from  his  body  when  he  sneezes  ;  Pope  Gregory  prays 
to  avert  the  pestilence,  in  those  days  when  the  air  was  so 
deadly  that  he  who  sneezed  died  of  it;  and  from  these 
imaginary  events  legend  declares  that  the  use  of  the  sneez- 
ing formulas  was  handed  down.  It  is  more  to  our  purpose 
to  notice  the  existence  of  a  corresponding  set  of  ideas  and 
customs  connected  with  gaping.  Among  the  Zulus,  repeated 
yawning  and  sneezing  are  classed  together  as  signs  of 
approaching  spiritual  possession.^  The  Hindu,  when  he 
gapes,  must  snap  his  thumb  and  finger,  and  repeat  the  name 
of  some  god,  as  Kama :  to  neglect  this  is  a  sin  as  great  as 
the  murder  of  a  Brahman.'^  The  Persians  ascribe  yawning, 
sneezing,  &c.,  to  demoniacal  possession.  Among  the  modem 
Moslems  generally,  when  a  man  yawns,  he  puts  the  back  of 
his  left  hand  to  his  mouth,  saying,  '  I  seek  refuge  with 
Allah  from  Satan  the  accursed  1 '  but  the  act  of  yawning  is 
to  be  avoided,  for  the  Devil  is  in  the  habit  of  leaping  into 
a  gaping  mouth.  ^    This  may  very  likely  be  the  meaning  of 

'  Callaway,  p.  263.  '  Ward,  1.  c. 

'  '  Pend-Nameh,'  tr.  de  Sacy,  ch.  Ixiii. ;  Maury,  'Magie,'  &c.,  p.  302  ; 
Lane,  1.  c. 


,  but  they 
unong  high 
)  little  for- 
of  the  story 
[  her  hearty 
if  the  fiddle 
rmany,  and 

bese  absurd 
to  curious 
the  matter 
xplanatioDs 
,hs, — Greek, 
preservation 
.  of  life  by  a 
3  heretofore, 
regory  prays 
air  was  so 
I  from  these 
f  the  sneez- 
our  purpose 
if  ideas  and 
us,  repeated 
as  signs  of 
when  he 
at  the  name 
as  great  as 
36  yawning, 
)he  modem 
the  back  of 
ige  with 
yawning  is 
eaping  into 
meaning  of 

,'  &c.,  p.  302 ; 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTUEB. 


103 


the  Jewish  proverb,  '  Open  not  thy  mouth  to  Satan ! '  The 
other  half  of  this  idea  shows  itself  clearly  in  Josephus'  story 
of  his  having  seen  a  certain  Jew,  named  Eleazar,  cure 
demoniacs  in  Vespasian's  time,  by  drawing  the  demons  out 
through  their  nostrils,  by  means  of  a  ring  containing  a  root 
of  mystic  virtue  mentioned  by  Solomon.^  The  account  of  the 
sect  of  the  Messalians,  who  used  to  spit  and  blow  their  noses 
to  expel  the  demons  they  might  have  drawn  in  with  their 
breath  ,**  the  records  of  the  mediaeval  exorcists  driving  out 
devils  through  the  patients'  nostrils,^  and  the  custom,  still 
kept  up  in  the  Tyrol,  of  crossing  oneself  when  one  yawns, 
lest  something  evil  should  come  into  one's  mouth,*  involve 
similar  ideas.  In  comparing  the  modern  Kafir  ideas  with 
those  of  other  districts  of  the  world,  we  find  a  distinct  notion 
of  a  sneeze  being  due  to  a  spiritual  presence.  This,  which 
seems  indeed  the  key  to  the  whole  matter,  has  been  well 
brought  into  view  by  Mr.  Haliburton,  as  displayed  in  Keltic 
folk-lore,  in  a  group  of  stories  turning  on  the  superstition 
that  any  one  who  sneezes  is  liable  to  be  carried  oS  by  the  ';,/ 
fairies,  unless  their  power  be  counteracted  by  an  invocation, 
as '  God  bless  you  ? '  ^  The  corresponding  idea  as  to  yawn- 
ing is  to  be  found  in  an  Iceland  folk-lore  legend,  where  the 
troll,  who  has  transformed  herself  into  the  shape  of  the 
beautiful  queen,  says,  '  When  I  yawn  a  little  yawn,  I  am  a 
neat  and  tiny  maiden  ;  when  I  yawn  a  half-yawn,  then  I 
am  as  a  half-troll ;  when  I  yawn  a  whole  yawn,  then  am 
I  as  a  whole  troll.'  ^  On  the  whole,  though  the  sneezing 
superstition  makes  no  approach  to  universality  among  man- 
kind, its  wide  distribution  is  highly  remarkable,  and  it  would 
be  an  interesting  problem  to  decide  how  far  this  wide  distri- 
bution is  due  to  independent  growth  in  several  regions, 

*  G.  Brecher,  '  Das  Transcendentale  im  Talmud,'  p.  168  ;  Joseph.  Ant. 
Jud.  viii.  2,  5. 

*  Migne,  '  Die.  des  Heresies,'  s.  v. 

'  Bastian,  '  Mensch,'  vol.  ii.  pp.  115,  322. 

♦  Wuttke,  '  Deutsche  Volksaberglaube,'  p.  137. 

•  Haliburton,  op.  cit. 

•  Powell  and  Magnussen,  '  Legends  of  Iceland,"  2nd  aer.  p.  448. 


Wi 


104 


SURVIVAL  IN   CULTURE. 


!  ■ 


)! 


'liill 


how  far  to  conveyance  from  race  to  race,  and  how  far  to 
ancestral  inheritance.  Hero  it  has  only  to  be  maintained 
that  it  was  not  originally  an  arbitrary  and  meaningless 
custom,  but  the  working  out  of  a  principle.^  The  plain 
statement  by  the  modern  Zulus  fits  with  the  hints  to  be 
gained  from  the  superstition  and  folk-lore  of  other  races,  to 
connect  the  notions  and  practices  as  to  sneezing  with  the 
ancient  and  savage  doctrine  of  pervading  and  invading 
spirits,  considered  as  good  or  evil,  and  treated  accordingly. 
The  lingering  survivals  of  the  quaint  old  formulas  in  modern 
Europe  seem  an  unconscious  record  of  the  time  when  the 
explanation  of  sneezing  had  not  yet  been  given  over  to 
physiology,  but  was  still  in  the  '  theological  stage.' 

There  is  current  in  Scotland  the  belief  that  the  Picts, 
to  whom  local  legend  attributes  buildings  of  prehistoric 
antiquity,  bathed  their  foundation-stones  with  human 
blood ;  and  legend  even  tells  that  St.  Columba  found  it 
necessary  to  bury  St.  Oran  alive  beneath  the  foundation  of 
his  monastery,  in  order  to  propitiate  the  spirits  of  the  soil 
who  demolished  by  night  what  was  built  during  the  day. 
So  late  as  1843,  in  Germany,  when  a  new  bridge  was  built 
at  Halle,  a  notion  was  abroad  among  the  people  that  a  child 
was  wanted  to  be  built  into  the  foundation.  These  ideas  of 
church  or  wall  or  bridge  wanting  human  blood  or  an  im- 
mured victim  to  make  the  foundation  steadfast,  are  not  only 
widespread  in  European  folk-lore,  but  local  chronicle  or  tra- 
dition asserts  them  as  matter  of  historical  fact  in  district 
after  district.  Thus,  when  the  broken  dam  of  the  Nogat 
had  to  be  repaired  in  1463,  the  peasants,  on  the  advice  to 
throw  in  a  living  man,  are  said  to  have  made  a  beggar  drunk 
and  buried  him  there.  Thuringian  legend  declares  that  to 
make  the  castle  of  Liebenstein  fast  and  impregnable,  a  child 
was  bought  for  hard  money  of  its  mother  and  walled  in.     It 

•  The  cases  in  which  a  sneeze  is  interpreted  under  special  conditions,  as 
with  reference  to  right  and  left,  early  morning,  &c.  (see  Plutarch,  De 
Oenio  Socratis,  &c.),  are  not  considered  here,  as  they  belong  to  ordinary 
omen-divination. 


SUHVrVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


105 


was  eating  a  cake  while  the  masons  were  at  work,  the  story 
goes,  and  it  cried  out,  '  Mother,  I  see  thee  still ; '  then 
later, '  Mother,  I  see  thee  a  little  still ; '  and,  as  they  put 
in  the  last  stone, '  Mother,  now  I  see  thee  no  more.'  The 
wall  of  Copenhagen,  legend  says,  sank  as  fast  as  it  was 
huilt ;  so  they  took  an  innocent  little  girl,  set  her  on  a  chair 
at  a  table  with  toys  and  eatables,  and,  as  she  played  and  ate, 
twelve  master-masons  closed  a  vault  over  her ;  then,  with 
clanging  music,  the  wall  was  raised,  and  stood  firm  ever 
after.  Thus  Italian  legend  tells  of  the  bridge  of  Arta,  that 
fell  in  and  fell  in  till  they  walled  in  the  master-builder's 
wife,  and  she  spoke  her  dying  curse  that  the  bridge  should 
tremble  like  a  flower-stalk  henceforth.  The  Slavonic  chiefs 
founding  Detinez,  according  to  old  heathen  custom,  sent  out 
men  to  take  the  first  boy  they  met  and  bury  him  in  the 
foundation.  Servian  legend  tells  how  three  brothers  com- 
bined to  build  the  fortress  of  Skadra  (Scutari) ;  but,  year 
after  year,  the  demon  (vila)  razed  by  night  what  the  three 
hundred  masons  built  by  day.  The  fiend  must  be  appeased 
by  a  human  sacrifice,  the  first  of  the  three  wives  who  should 
come  bringing  food  to  the  workmen.  All  three  brothers 
swore  to  keep  the  dreadful  secret  from  their  wives  ;  but  the 
two  eldest  gave  traitorous  warning  to  theirs,  and  it  was  the 
youngest  brother's  wife  who  came  unsuspecting,  and  they 
built  her  in.  But  she  entreated  that  an  opening  should  be 
left  for  her  to  suckle  her  baby  through,  and  for  a  twelve- 
month it  was  brought.  To  this  day,  Servian  wives  visit  the 
tomb  of  the  good  mother,  still  marked  by  a  stream  of  water 
which  trickles,  milky  with  lime,  down  the  fortress  wall. 
Lastly,  there  is  our  own  legend  of  Vortigem,  who  could  not 
finish  his  tower  till  the  foundation-stone  was  wetted  with 
the  blood  of  a  child  born  of  a  mother  without  a  father.  As 
is  usual  in  the  history  of  sacrifice,  we  hear  of  substitutes  for 
such  victims  ;  empty  coffins  walled  up  in  Germany,  a  lamb 
walled  in  under  the  altar  in  Denmark  to  make  the  church 
stand  fast,  and  the  churchyard  in  like  manner  handselled  by 
burying  a  live  horse  first.    In  modem  Greece  an  evident 


SURVIVAL   IN  CULTURE. 


ill 


fllfi 


iiii  I 

"""■■III  I  hi: 


i    lilii!!: 
ill 


reliu  9f  tht)  idea  survives  in  the  superstition  that  the  first 
passer-by  afu  r  a  foundation  tone  is  laid  will  die  within  the 
year,  wli<  lofore  the  masons  will  compromise  the  debt  by 
killing  a  lain!)  or  a  black  cock  on  the  stone.  With  much 
the  same  idea  Gorman  ^s^ond  tells  of  the  bridge-building 
fiend  cheated  of  his  proiiiised  fee,  a  soul,  by  the  device  of 
making  a  cock  run  first  across ;  and  thus  German  folk-lore 
says  it  is  well,  before  entering  a  new  house,  to  let  a  cat  or 
dog  run  in.^  From  all  this  it  seems  that,  with  duo  allow- 
ance for  the  idea  having  passed  into  an  often-repeated  and 
varied  mythic  theme,  yet  written  and  unwritten  tradition  do 
preserve  the  memory  of  a  bloodthirsty  barbaric  rite,  which 
not  only  really  existed  in  ancient  times,  but  lingered  long  in 
European  history.  If  now  we  look  to  less  cultured  countnes, 
we  shall  find  the  rite  carried  on  in  our  own  day  with  a 
distinctly  religious  purpose,  either  to  propitiate  the  earth- 
spirits  with  a  victim,  or  to  convert  the  soul  of  the  victim 
himself  into  a  protecting  demon. 

In  Africa,  in  Galam,  a  boy  and  girl  used  to  be  buried 
alive  before  the  great  gate  of  the  city  to  make  it  impreg- 
nable, a  practice  once  exoc  ated  on  a  large  scale  by  a  Bam- 
barra  tyrant;  while  iu  Great  Bassam  and  Yarriba  such 
sacrifices  were  usual  at  the  foundation  of  a  house  or  village.^ 
In  Polynesia,  Ellis  heard  of  the  custom,  instanced  by  the 
fact  that  the  central  pillar  of  one  of  the  temples  at  Maeva 
was  planted  upon  the  body  of  a  human  victim.*    In  Borneo, 


*  W.  Scott, '  Minstrelsy  of  Scottish  Border  ; '  Forbes  Leslie,  '  Early  Races 
of  Scotland,'  vol.  i.  pp.  149,  487  ;  Grimm,  'Deutsche  Mythologie,'  pp.  972, 
1095  ;  Bastian,  *  Mensch,'  vol.  ii.  pp.  92,  407,  vol.  iii.  pp.  ]  "f  li".  ;  Bowring, 
'Servian  Popular  Poetry,'  p.  64.  A  review  of  the  Ix.'i  Ksi'ciotj  of  the 
present  work  in  'Nature,'  Jun'  i5,  1871,  contains  thf  ♦11  -  ■■■  'It  is 
not,  for  example,  many  years  since  the  present  Lord  '■  ■  j  ..  .used  of 
having  built  an  obnoxious  person — one  account,  if  we  remember  right, 
said  eight  obnoxious  persons — into  the  foundation  of  a  bridge  at  Stoneleigh. 
Of  course  so  preposterous  a  charge  carried  on  its  face  its  own  sufScient 
refutation  ;  but  the  fact  that  it  was  brought  at  all  ia  a  singular  instance  of 
tho  almost  incredible  vitality  of  old  traditions.' 

•  W-Jtz,  vol  ii.  p.  197. 


ma. 


,/n.  Res.'  vol.  i.  p.  346  ;  Tyerman  a^d  Bennet,  vol.  ii.  p.  89. 


b  the  fint 
within  the 
e  debt  hy 
Vith  much 
e-building 
)  device  of 
a  folk-lore 
et  a  cat  or 
due  allow- 
peated  and 
radition  do 
rite,  which 
ired  long  in 
i  countnes, 
day  ^v"Lth  a 
the  earth- 
the  victim 

►  be  buried 
it  impreg- 
by  a  Bam- 
irriba  such 
or  village.** 
ced  by  the 
s  at  Maeva 
In  Borneo, 


SURVIVAL  IN   CULTURE. 


107 


among  the  Milanau  Dayaks,  at  thf^  erection  •!  the  largest 
house  a  deep  hole  was  dug  to  receive  tho  first  post,  which 
was  then  suspended  over  it;  i.  Oave  girl  was  placed  in  the 
excavation;  at  a  signal  the  lashingn  wore  cut,  and  iho 
enormous  timber  descended,  crushing  ilie  girl  to  death,  a 
sacrifice  to  the  spirits.  St  John  saw  a  milder  form  of  the 
rite  performed,  when  the  chief  of  the  Quop  Dayakw  set  up  a 
flaj'-iall  near  his  house,  a  chicken  being  thrown  in  to  be 
i.v  1  'd  .^y  the  descending  pole.*  More  cultured  nations  of 
iStnitheri!  Asia  have  carried  on  into  modern  ages  the  rite  of 
''i'  foundation-sacrifice.  A  17th  century  account  of  Japan 
mentions  the  belief  there  that  a  wall  laid  on  the  body  of  a 
willing  human  victim  would  be  secure  from  accident ;  accord- 
ingly, when  a  great  wall  was  to  be  built,  some  wretched 
slave  would  offer  himself  as  foundation,  lying  down  in  the 
trench  to  be  crushed  by  the  heavy  stones  lowered  uponhim.'-^ 
When  the  gate  of  the  new  city  of  Tavoy,  in  Tenasserim,  was 
built,  perhaps  twenty  yeais  ago.  Mason  was  told  by  an  eye- 
witness that  a  criminal  was  put  in  each  post-hole  to  become 
a  protecting  demon.  Thus  it  appears  that  such  stories  as 
that  of  the  human  victims  buried  for  spirit-watchers  under 
the  gates  of  Mandalay,  of  the  queen  who  was  drowned 
in  a  Birmese  reservoir  to  make  the  dyke  safe,  of  the 
hero  whose  divided  body  was  buried  under  the  fortress  of 
Thatung  to  make  it  impregnable,  are  the  records,  whether 
in  historical  or  mythical  form,  of  the  actual  customs  of  the 


'  Early  Races 

logie,'  pp.  972, 

\i'2,;  Bowring, 

ti'iTi  of  the 

V  :  ■     'Iti8 

J  ».  I  used  of 

member  right, 

;Stoneleigh. 

Dwn  suflBcient 

lar  instance  of 


vol.  ii.  p.  39. 


'  St.  John,  'Far  East,'  vol.  i.  p.  46 ;  see  Bastian,  vol.  ii.  p.  407.  I  am 
indebted  to  Mr.  R.  K.  Douglas  for  a  perfect  example  of  one  meaning  of  th3 
foundation-sacrifice,  rom  the  Chinese  book,  'Yuh  hea  ko'  ('Jewelled 
Casket  of  Divination  )  :  '  Before  beginning  to  build,  the  workmen  should 
Hit.  .iflce  to  the  gods  of  the  neighbourhood,  of  the  earth  and  wood.  Should 
the  carpenters  be  very  apprehensive  of  the  building  falling,  they,  when 
fixing  a  post,  should  take  something  living  and  put  it  beneath,  and  lower 
the  post  on  it,  and  to  liberate  [the  evil  influences]  they  should  strike  the 
post  with  an  axe  and  repeat — 

"It  is  well,  it  is  well, 
May  those  who  live  within 
Be  ever  warm  and  well  fed."  ' 


'  Caron,  '  Japan,'  in  Pinkorton,  vol,  vii.  p.  623. 


108 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


I. 


'U: 


•  is 


Siii 


land.^  Within  our  own  dominion,  when  Rajah  Sala  Byne 
was  building  the  fort  of  Sialkot  in  the  Punjab,  the  founda- 
tion of  the  south-east  bastion  gave  way  so  repeatedly  that 
he  had  recourse  to  a  soothsayer,  who  assured  him  that  it 
would  never  stand  until  the  blood  of  an  only  son  was  shed 
there,  wherefore  the  only  son  of  a  widow  was  sacrificed.^ 
It  is  thus  plain  that  hideous  rites,  of  which  Europe  has 
scarcely  kept  up  more  than  the  dim  memory,  have  held  fast 
their  ancient  practice  and  meaning  in  Africa,  Polynesia,  and 
Asia,  among  races  who  represent  in  grade,  if  not  in  chro- 
nology, earlier  stages  of  civilization. 

When  Sir  Walter  Scott,  in  the '  Pirate,'  tells  of  Bryce  the 
pedlar  refusing  to  help  Mordaunt  to  save  the  shipwrecked 
sailor  from  drowning,  and  even  remonstrating  with  him  on 
the  rashness  of  such  a  deed,  he  states  an  old  superstition  of 
the  Shetlanders.  'Are  you  mad?'  says  the  pedlar ;  'you 
that  have  lived  sae  lang  in  Zetland,  to  risk  the  saving  of  a 
drowning  man  ?  Wot  ye  not,  if  you  bring  him  to  life  again, 
he  will  be  sure  to  do  you  some  capital  injury?'  Were  this 
inhuman  thought  noticed  in  this  one  district  alone,  it  might 
be  fancied  to  have  had  its  rise  in  some  local  idea  now  no  longer 
to  be  explained.  But  when  mentions  of  similar  superstitions 
are  collected  among  the  St.  Kilda  islanders  and  the  boatmen 
of  the  Danube,  among  French  and  English  sailors,  and  even 
out  of  Europe  and  among  less  civilized  races,  we  cease  to 
think  of  local  fancies,  but  look  for  some  widely  accepted 
belief  of  the  lower  culture  to  account  for  such  a  state  of 
things.  The  Hindu  does  not  save  a  man  from  drowning  in 
the  sacred  Ganges,  and  the  islanders  of  the  Malay  archipelago 
share  the  cruel  notion.^  Of  all  people  the  rude  Kamchadals 
have  the  prohibition  in  the  most  remarkable  form.  They 
hold  it  a  great  fault,  says  Kracheninnikow,  to  save  a  drown- 


m: 


:  I  I 


M^f 


'  Bastinn,  '  Oestl.  Asien.'  vol.  i.  pp.  193,  214  ;  vol.  ii.  pp.  91,  270  ;  vol.  iii. 
p.  16  ;  Roberts,  'Oriental  Illustrations  of  Scriptures,'  p.  283  (Coylon). 

"  Bastian,  '  Mensch,' vol.  iii.  p.  107.  A  modern  Arnaut  story  is  given 
by  Prof.  Liebrecht  in  '  Philologus,'  vol.  xxiii.  (1865),  p.  682. 

-  Bastian,  '  Mensch,'  vol.  iii.  p.  210 ;  Ward,  '  Hindoos,'  vol,  ii,  p.  318. 


ipti;, 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


109 


I  Sala  Byne 
the  founda- 
5ated]y  that 
him  that  it 
)n  was  shed 
i  sacrificed.^ 
Europe  has 
ive  held  fast 
>lynesia,  and 
aot  in  chro- 

of  Bryce  the 
shipwrecked 
with  him  on 
iperstition  of 
pedlar;  'you 
3  saving  of  a 
.  to  life  again, 
Were  this 
one,  it  might 
LOW  no  longer 
superstitions 
the  boatmen 
rs,  and  even 
we  cease  to 
ely  accepted 
Ih  a  state  of 
drowning  in 
archipelago 
Karachadals 
Iform.     They 
,ve  a  drown- 


ing man  ;   he  who  delivers  him  will  be  drowned  himself.^ 
Steller's  account  is  more  extraordinary,  and  probably  applies 
only  to  cases  where  the  victim  is  actually  drowning :  he  says 
that  if  a  man  fell  by  chance  into  the  water,  it  was  a  great 
sin  for  him  to  get  out,  for  as  he  had  been  destined  to  drown 
he  did  wrong  in  not  drowning,  wherefore  no  one  would  let 
him  into  his  dwelling,  nor  speak  to  him,  nor  give  him  food 
or  a  wife,  but  he  was  reckoned  for  dead ;  and  even  when  a 
man  fell  into  the  water  while  others  were  standing  by,  far 
from  helping  him  out,  they  would  drown  him  by  force.    Now 
these  barbarians,  it  appears,  avoided  volcanoes  because  of  the 
spirits  who  live  there  and  cook  their  food ;  for  a  like  reason, 
they  held  it  a  sin  to  bathe  in  hot  springs ;  and  they  believed 
with  fear  in  a  fish-like  spirit  of  the  sea,  whom  they  called 
Mitgk.''     This  spiritualistic  belief  among  the  Kamchadals 
is,  no  doubt,  the  key  to  their  superstition  as  to  rescuing 
drowning   men.    There   is  even  to  be  found  in  modern 
European  superstition,  not  only  the  practice,  but  with  it  a 
lingering  survival  of  its  ancient  spiritualistic  significance. 
In  Bohemia,  a  recent  account  (1864)  says  that  the  fishermen 
do  not  venture  to  snatch  a  drowning  man  from  the  waters. 
They  fear  that  the  '  Waterman '  (i.e.  water-demon)  would 
take  away  their  luck  in  fishing,  and  drown  themselves  at 
the  first  opportunity.^     This  explanation  of  the  prejudice 
against  saving  the  water-spirit's  victim  may  be  confirmed 
by  a  mass  of  evidence  from  various  districts  of  the  world. 
Thus,  in  discussing  the  doctrine  of  sacrifice,  it  will  appear 
that  the  usual  manner  of  making  an  offering  to  a  well,  river, 
lake,  or  sea,  is  simply  to  cast  propeity,  cattle,  or  men  into 
,  the  water,  which  personally  or  by  its  in-dwelling  spirit  takes 
possession  of  them.*    That  the  accidental  drowning  of  a 
man  is  held  to  be  such  a  seizure,  savage  and  civilized  folk- 
lore show  by  many  examples.     Among  the  Sioux  Indians, 


Jtl,  270  ;  vol.  iii. 
|3  (Coylon). 
story  is  given 

irol,  ii,  p.  318. 


*  Kracheninnikow, '  Descr.  du  Kamchatka,  Voy.  en  Siberie,'  vol.  iii.  p.  72. 
»  Steller,  'Kamtschatka,'  pp.  265,  274. 

'  J.  V.  Grohmann,  '  Aberglauben  und  Gebrauche  aus  BOhmen,'  p.  12. 

♦  Chap.  XVIII, 


1, 

f      i 


il    I 
If 


H  I 


3  i    I 


I'll! 


110 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTUEB. 


it  is  Unk-tahe  the  water-monster  that  drowns  his  victims  in 
flood  or  rapid  ;^  in  New  Zealand  huge  supernatural  reptile- 
monsters,  called  Taniwha,  live  in  river-bends,  and  those  who 
are  drowned  are  said  to  be  pulled  under  by  them ;  ^  the 
Siamese  fears  the  Pniik  or  water-spirit  that  seizes  bathers 
and  drags  them  under  to  his  dwelling  ;^  in  Slavonic  lands 
it  is  Topielec  (the  ducker)  by  whom  men  are  always 
drowned  ;*  wheu  some  one  is  drowned  in  Germiany,  people 
recollect  the  religion  of  their  ancestors,  and  say,  '  The 
river-spirit  claims  his  yearly  sacrifice,'  or,  more  simply, 
'  The  nix  has  taken  him  :'^ — 

'Ich  glaube,  die  Wellen  verschlingen, 

Am  Ende  Fischer  und  Eahn; 
Und  das  hat  mit  ihrem  Singen 
Die  Lorelei  gethan.' 

From  this  point  of  view  it  is  obvious  that  to  save  a  sinking 
man  is  to  snatch  a  victim  from  the  very  clutches  of  the 
I  water-spirit,  a  rash  defiance  of  deity  which  would  hardly 
pass  unavenged.  In  the  civilized  world  the  rude  old  theo- 
logical conception  of  drowning  has  long  been  superseded 
by  physical  explanation ;  and  the  prejudice  against  rescue 
from  such  a  death  may  have  now  almost  or  altogether 
disappeared.  But  archaic  ideas,  drifted  on  into  modern 
folk-lore  and  poetry,  still  bring  to  our  view  an  apparent 
connexion  between  the  primitive  doctrine  and  the  surviving 
custom. 

As  the  social  development  of  the  world  goes  on,  the 
weightiest  thoughts  and  actions  may  dwindle  to  mere 
survival.  Original  meaning  dies  out  gradually,  each  gene- 
ration leaves  fewer  and  fewer  to  bear  it  in  mind,  till  it  falls 
out  of  popular  memory,  and  in  after-days  ethnography  has 
to  attempt,  more  or  less  successfully,  to  restore  it  by  piecing 


'  Eastman,  '  Dacotah,'  pp.  118,  125. 

'  R.  Taylor,  *  New  Zealand,'  p.  48. 

'  Bastian,  'Oestl.  Asien,' vol.  iii,  p.  34. 

*  Hanusch,  '  Wissenschaft  des  Slawischen  Mythus,'  p.  299. 

'  Grimm,  '  Deutsche  Myth.'  p.  462. 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


Ill 


s  victims  in 
iral  reptile- 
d  those  who 
them;'*  the 
izes  bathers 
ivonic  lands 
are  always 
liany,  people 
[  say,  'The 
lore  simply, 


together  lines  of  isolated  or  forgotten  facts.  Children's 
sports,  popular  sayings,  absurd  customs,  may  be  practically 
unimportant,  but  are  not  philosophically  insignificant,  bear- 
ing as  they  do  on  some  of  the  most  instructive  phases  of 
early  culture.  Ugly  and  cruel  superstitions  may  prove  to  be 
relics  of  primitive  barbarism,  for  in  keeping  up  such  Man  is 
like  Shakspeare's  fox, 

'Who,  ne'er  so  tame,  so  cherish'd,  and  lock'd  up, 
Will  have  a  wild  trick  of  his  ancestors.' 


Lve  a  sinking 

itches  of  the 

irould  hardly 

ide  old  theo- 

superseded 

[ainst  rescue 

ir  altogether 

into  modern 

|an  apparent 

le  surviving 

toes  on,  the 

lie  to  mere 

J,  each  gene- 

l,  tiU  it  falls 

lography  has 

It  by  piecing 


).  299. 


if 


I 

s 


II  I 


CHAPTER    IV. 


m\ 


.1  ■;! 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTURE  {coufmued). 

Occult  Sciences — Magical  powers  attributed  by  higher  to  lower  races — 
Magical  processes  based  on  Association  of  Ideas — Omens — Augury,  &c. 
— Oneiromancy — Haruspication,  Scapulimancy,  Chiromancy,  &c. — 
Cartomancy,  &c. — Rhabdomancy,  Dactyliomancy,  Coscinomancy,  &c. 
— Astrology — Intellectual  conditions  accounting  for  the  persistence  of 
Magic — Survival  passes  into  Revival — Witchcraft,  originating  in 
savage  culture,  continues  in  barbaric  civilization  ;  its  decline  in  early 
mediaeval  Europe  followed  by  revival ;  its  practices  and  counter- 
practices  belong  to  earlier  culture — Spiritualism  ha«  its  source  in 
early  stages  of  culture,  in  close  connexion  with  witchcraft — Spirit" 
rapping  and  Spirit-writing — Rising  in  the  air — Performances  of  tied 
mediums — Fiactical  bearing  of  the  study  of  Survival. 

In  examining  the  survival  of  opinions  in  the  midst  of 
conditions  of  society  becoming  gradually  estranged  from 
them,  and  tending  at  last  to  suppress  them  altogether,  much 
may  be  learnt  from  the  history  of  one  of  the  most  pernicious 
delusions  that  ever  vexed  mankind,  the  belief  in  Magic. 
Looking  at  Occult  Science  from  this  ethnographic  point  of 
view,  I  shall  instance  some  of  its  branches  as  illustrating 
the  course  of  intellectual  culture.  Its  place  in  history  is 
briefly  this.  It  belongs  in  its  main  principle  to  the  lowest 
known  stages  of  civilization,  and  the  lower  races,  who  have 
not  partaken  largely  of  the  education  of  the  world,  still 
maintain  it  in  vigour.  From  this  level  it  may  be  traced 
upward,  much  of  the  savage  art  holding  its  place  sub- 
stantially unchanged,  and  many  new  practices  being  in 
course  of  time  developed,  while  both  the  older  and  newer 
developments  have  lasted  on  more  or  less  among  modern 
cultured  nations.     But  during  the  ages  in  which  progressive 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTUBE. 


113 


owor  races — 
-Augury,  &c. 
nancy,  &c. — 
nomancy,  &c. 
persistence  of 
figinating    in 
dine  in  early 
and  counter- 
its  source  in 
icraft— Spirit- 
nances  of  tied 


le  midst  of 
mged  from 
[ther,  much 
pernicious 
in  Magic, 
lie  point  of 
illustrating 
history  is 
the  lowest 
,  who  have 
rorld,  still 
be  traced 
place  sub- 
being  in 
and  newer 
ig  modern 

^rfififrGKKlVe 


races  have  been  learning  to  submit  their  opinions  to  closer 
and  closer  experimental  tests,  occult  science  has  been  break- 
ing down  into  the  condition  of  a  survival,  in  which  state  we 
mostly  find  it  among  ourselves. 

The  modern  educated  world,  rejecting  occult  science  as  a 
contemptible  superstition,  has  practically  committed  itself 
to  the  opinion  that  magic  belongs  to  a  lower  level  of 
civilization.   It  is  very  instructive  to  find  the  soundness  of 
this  judgment  undesignedly  confirmed  by  nations  whose 
education  has  not  advanced  far  enough  to  destroy  their 
belief  in  magic  itself.     In  any  country  an  isolated  or  out- 
lying race,  the  lingering  survivor  of  an  older  nationality,  is 
liable  to  the  reputation  of  sorcery.     It  is  thus  with  the 
Lavas  of  Birma,  supposed  to  be  the  broken-down  remains 
of  an  ancient  cultured  race,  and  dreaded  as  man-tigers  ;i 
and  with  the  Budas  of  Abyssinia,  who  are  at  once  the  smiths 
and  potters,  sorcerers  and  werewolves,  of  their  district.^   But 
the  usual  and  suggestive  state  of  things  is  that  nations  who 
believe  with  the  sincerest  terror  in  the  reality  of  the  magic 
art,  at  the  same  time  cannot  shut  their  eyes  to  the  fact  that 
it  more  essentially  belongs  to,  and  is  more  thoroughly  at 
home  among,  races  less  civilized  than  themselves.     The 
Malays  of  the  Peninsula,  who  have  adopted  Mohammedan 
religion  and  civilization,  have  this  idea  of  the  lower  tribes 
of  the  land,  tribes  more  or  less  of  their  own  race,  but  who  have 
remained  in  their  early  savage  condition.   The  Malays  have 
enchanters  of  their  own,  but  consider  them  inferior  to  the 
sorcerers  or  poyangs  belonging  to  the  rude  Mintira ;  to  these 
they  will  resort  for  the  cure  of  diseases  and  the  working  of 
misfortune  and  death  to  their  enemies.     It  is,  in  fact,  the 
best  protection  the  Mintira  have  against  their  stronger 
Malay  neighbours,  that  these  are  careful  not  to  offend  them 
for  fear  of  their  powers  of  magical  revenge.     The  Jakuns, 
again,  are  a  rude  and  wild  race,  whom  the  Malays  despise 
as  infidels  and  little  higher  than  animals,  but  whom  at  the 

'  Bastian,  '  Oestl.  Asien,'  vol.  i.  p.  119. 

'  '  Life  of  Nath.  Pearce,'  ed.  by  J.  J.  Halls,  vol.  i.  p.  286. 

VOL.  I.  I 


'Mi: 


114 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


.;'.>i;       .1: 


,|':'i 


hi    i 
I'i;    ! 


same  time  they  fear  extremely.  To  the  Malay  the  Jakun 
seems  a  supematux'al  being,  skilled  in  divination,  sorcery, 
and  fascination,  able  to  do  evil  or  good  according  to  his 
pleasure,  whose  blessing  will  be  followed  by  the  most 
fortunate  success,  and  his  curse  by  the  most  dreadful  con- 
sequences ;  he  can  turn  towards  the  house  of  an  enemy,  at 
whatever  distance,  and  beat  two  sticks  together  till  that 
enemy  will  fall  sick  and  die;  he  is  skilled  in  herbal  physic; 
he  has  the  power  of  charming  the  fiercest  wild  beasts. 
Thus  it  is  that  the  Malays,  though  they  despise  the  Jakuns, 
refrain,  in  many  circumstances,  from  ill-treating  them.'  In 
India,  in  long-past  ages,  the  dominant  Aryans  described  the 
rude  indigenes  of  the  land  by  the  epithets  of  '  possessed  of 
magical  powers/  '  changing  their  shape  at  will.'  ^  To  this 
day,  Hindus  settled  in  Chota-Nagpur  and  Singbhum  firmly 
believe  that  the  Mundas  have  powers  of  witchcraft,  whereby 
they  can  transform  themselves  into  tigers  and  other  beasts 
of  prey  to  devour  their  enemies,  and  can  witch  away  the 
lives  of  man  and  beast ;  it  is  to  the  wildest  and  most 
savage  of  the  tribe  that  such  powers  are  generally  ascribed.^ 
In  Southern  India,  again,  we  hear  in  past  times  of 
Hinduized  Dravidians,  the  Sudras  of  Canara,  living  in  fear 
of  the  daemoniacal  powers  of  the  slave-caste  below  them.* 
In  our  own  day,  among  Dra vidian  tribes  of  the  Nilagiri 
district,  the  Todas  and  Badagas  are  in  mortal  dread  of  the 
Kurumbas,  despised  and  wretched  forest  outcasts,  but 
gifted,  it  is  believed,  with  powers  of  destroying  men  and 
animals  and  property  by  witchcraft.^  Northern  Europe 
brings  the  like  contrast  sharply  into  view.  The  Finns  and 
Lapps,  whose  low  Tatar  barbarism  was  characterized  by 
sorcery  such  as  flourishes  still  among  their  Siberian  kins- 

*  '  Journ.  Ind.  Aicliip.'  vol.  i.  p.  328  ;  vol.  ii.  p.  273  ;  see  vol.  iv.  p.  425. 
^  Muir,  'Sanskrit  Texts,'  part  ii.  p.  435. 

»  Dalton,  'Kols,'  in  'Tr.  Eth.  Soc'  vol.  vi.  p.  6  ;  see  p.  16. 

*  Jas.  Gardner,  'Faiths  of  the  World,'  s.  v.  'Exorcism.' 

»  Shortt,  'Tribes  of  Neilghurries,'  in  'Tr.  Eth.  Soc'  vol.  vii.  pp.  247, 
277  ;  Sir  W.  Elliot  in  'Trans.  Congress  of  Prehistoric  Archaeology,'  1868, 
p.  253. 


WT>  '■   ■'     i    '    ■ 


STTBVIVAL  IN  CULTUEB. 


115 


he  Jakun 
1,  sorcery, 
ing  to  his 
the  most 
adful  con- 
enemy,  at 
r  till  that 
3al  physic; 
ild  beasts, 
he  Jakuns, 
;them.*   In 
jBcribed  the 
)0ssessed  of 
'  2    To  this 
,hum  firmly 
ift,  whereby 
ather  beasts 
ih  away  the 
fc  and  most 
y  ascribed.^ 
it  times    of 
ving  in  fear 
^elow  them.* 
ihe  Nilagiri 
•ead  of  the 
itcasts,   but 
M  men  and 
tern  Europe 
|e  Finns  and 
tcterized  by 
lerian  kins- 

Ivol.  iv.  p.  425. 


1)1.  vii.  pp.  247, 
Ihseology,'  1868, 


folk,  were  accordingly  objects  of  superstitious  fear  to  their 
Scandinavian  neighbours  and  oppressors.     In  the  middle 
ages  the  name  of  Finn  was,  as  it  still  remains  among  sea- 
faring men,  equivalent  to  that  of  sorcerer,  while  Lapland 
witches  had  a  European  celebrity  as  practitioners  of  the 
black  art.    Ages  after  the  Finns  had  risen  in  the  social  scale, 
the  Lapps  retained  much  of  their  old  half-savage  habit  of 
life,  and  with  it  naturally  their  witchcraft,  so  that  even  the 
magic-gifted  Finns  revered  the  occult  powers  of  a  people 
more  barbarous  than  themselves.     Riihs  writes  thus  early 
in  the  present  century:  'There  are  still  sorcerers  in  Fin- 
land, but  the  skilfullest  of  them  believe  that  the  Lapps  far 
excel  them ;  of  a  well-experienced  magician  they  say,  "  That 
is  quite  a  Lapp,"  and  they  journey  to  Lapland  for  such 
knowledge.'^     All  this  is  of  a  piece  with  the  survival  of 
such  ideas  among  the  ignorant  elsewhere  in  the  civilized 
world.    Many  a  white  man  in  the  West  Indies  and  Africa 
dreads    the    incantations    of   the    Obi- man,  and    Europe 
ascribes   powers    of   sorcery  to    despised    outcast  'races 
maudites,'  Gypsies  and  Cagots.     To  turn  from  nations  to 
sects,  the  attitude  of  Protestants  to  Catholics  in  this  matter 
is  instructive.     It  was  remarked  in  Scotland:    'There  is 

one  opinion  which  many  of  them  entertain that  a 

popish  priest  can  cast  out  devils  and  cure  madness,  and 
that  the  Presbyterian  clergy  have  no  such  power.'  So 
Bourne  says  of  the  Church  of  England  clergy,  that  the 
vulgar  think  them  no  conjurors,  and  say  none  can  lay 
spirits  but  popish  priests.  ^  These  accounts  are  not  recent, 
but  in  Germany  the  same  state  of  things  appears  to  exist 
still.  Protestants  get  the  aid  of  Catholic  priests  and  monks 
to  help  them  against  witchcraft,  to  lay  ghosts,  consecrate 
herbs,  and  discover  thieves  ; "  thus  with  unconscious  irony 
judging  the  relation  of  Kome  toward  modern  civilization. 
The  principal  key  to  the  understanding  of  Occult  Science 

*  F.  Eiihs,  '  Finland,'  p.  206  ;  Bastian,  » Mensch.'  vol.  iii.  p.  202. 

*  Brand,  '  Pop.  Ant'  vol.  iii.  pp.  81-3  ;  see  p.  313. 

"  Wuttke,  '  Deutsche  Volksaberglaube,'  p.  128  ;  see  p.  239. 

I  2 


ft, 


116 


8UBVIVAL  IN  CULTUBE. 


m 


d 


is  to  consider  it  as  based  on  the  Association  of  Ideas,  a 
faculty  which  lies  at  the  very  foundation  of  human  reason, 
but  in  no  small  degree  of  human  unreason  also.  Man,  as 
yet  in  a  low  intellectual  condition,  having  come  to  associate 
in  thought  those  things  which  he  found  by  experience  to  be 
connected  in  fact,  proceeded  erroneously  to  invert  this 
action,  and  to  conclude  that  association  in  thought  must 
involve  similar  connexion  in  reality.  He  thus  attempted 
to  discover,  to  foretell,  and  to  cause  events  by  means  of 
processes  which  we  can  now  see  to  have  only  an  ideal 
significance.  By  a  vast  mass  of  evidence  from  savage, 
barbaric,  and  civilized  life,  magic  arts  which  have  resulted 
from  thus  mistaking  an  ideal  for  a  real  connexion,  may  be 
clearly  traced  from  the  lower  culture  which  they  are  of,  to 
the  higher  culture  which  they  are  in.^  Such  are  the 
practices  whereby  a  distant  person  is  to  be  affected  by 
acting  on  something  closely  associated  with  him — his 
property,  clothes  he  has  worn,  and  above  all  cuttings  of  his 
hair  and  nails.  Not  only  do  savages  high  and  low  like  the 
Australians  and  Polynesians,  and  barbarians  like  the  nations 
of  Guinea,  live  in  deadly  terror  of  this  spiteful  craft — not 
only  have  the  Parsis  their  sacred  ritual  prescribed  for  bury- 
ing their  cut  hair  and  nails,  lest  demons  and  sorcerers 
should  do  mischief  with  them,  but  the  fear  of  leaving  such 
clippings  and  parings  about  lest  their  former  owner  should 
be  harmed  through  them,  has  by  no  means  died  out  of 
European  folklore,  and  the  German  peasant,  during  the 
days  between  his  child's  birth  and  baptism,  objects  to  lend 
anything  out  of  the  house,  lest  witchcraft  should  be  worked 
through  it  on  the  yet  unconsecrated  baby.^  As  the  negro 
fetish-man,  when  his  patient  does  not  come  in  person,  can 


*  For  an  examination  of  numerous  magical  arts,  mostly  coming  under 
this  category,  see  'Early  History  of  Mankind,'  chaps,  vi.  and  x. 

"  Stanbridge,  '  Abor.  of  Victoria,'  in  '  Tr.  Eth.  See'  vol.  i.  p.  299  ;  Ellis. 
'Polyn.  Ees.'  vol.  i,  p.  364;  J.  L.  Wilson,  'W.  Africa,'  p.  215  ;  Spiegel, 
'Avesta,'  vol.  i,  p.  124;  W^uttke,  'Deutsche  Volksaberglaube,'  p.  195; 
general  references  in  '  Early  History  of  Mankind,'  p.  129. 


f  Ideas,  a 
an  reason, 
.    Man,  as 

0  associate 
•ience  to  be 
invert  this 
»ught  must 

attempted 
r  means  of 
[y  an  ideal 
om  savage, 
,ve  resulted 
Lon,  may  be 
sy  are  of,  to 
ch  are  the 
affected  by 

1  him — his 
ttings  of  his 
low  like  the 

the  nations 

craft — not 

|ed  for  bury- 

id  sorcerers 

leaving  such 

ner  should 
died  out  of 

during  the 
ects  to  lend 
be  worked 
s  the  negro 

person,  can 


coming  under 
idx. 

p.  299  ;  Ellis, 
I.  215  ;  Spiegel, 
llaube/  p.  195; 


M 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


117 


divine  by  means  of  his  dirty  cloth  or  cap  instead,^  so  the 
modern  clairvoyant  professes  to  feel  sympathetically  the 
sensations  of  a  distant  person,  if  communication  be  made 
through  a  lock  of  his  hair  or  any  object  that  has  been  in 
contact  with  him.''    The  simple  idea  of  joining  two  objects 
with  a  cord,  taking  for  granted  that  this  communication  will 
establish  connexion  or  carry  influence,  has  been  worked  out 
in  various  ways  in  the  world.    In  Australia,  the  native  doctor 
fastens  one  end  of  a  string  to  the  ailing  part  of  the  patient's 
body,  and  by  sucking  at  the  other  end  pretends  to  draw  out 
blood  for  his  relief.^     In  Orissa,  the  Jeypore  witch  lets 
down  a  ball  of  thread  through  her  enemy's  roof  to  reach  his 
body,  that  by  putting  the  other  end  in  her  own  mouth  she 
may  suck  his  blood.*  When  a  reindeer  is  sacrificed  at  a  sick 
Ostyak's  tent-door,  the  patient  holds  in  his  hand  a  cord 
attached  to   the   victim  offered  for  his  benefit.^     Greek 
history  shows  a  similar  idea,  when  the  citizens  of  Ephesus 
carried  a  rope  seven  furlongs  from  their  walls  to  the  temple 
of  Artemis,  thus  to  place  themselves  under  her  safeguard 
against  the  attack  of  Croesus ;  and  in  the  yet  more  striking 
story  of  the  Kylonians,  who  tied  a  cord  to  the  statue  of  the 
goddess  when  they  quitted  the  asylum,  and  clung  to  it 
for  protection  as  they  crossed  unhallowed  ground ;  but  by 
ill-fate  the  cord  of  safety  broke  and  they  were  mercilessly 
put  to  death."    And  in  our  own  day,  Buddhist  priests  in 
solemn  ceremony  put  themselves  in  communication  with  a 
sacred  relic,  by  each  taking  hold  of  a  long  thread  fastened 
near  it  and  around  the  temple.^ 

Magical  arts  in  which  the  connexion  is   that  of  mere 
analogy  or  symbolism  are  endlessly  numerous  throughout 


1  Burton,  '  W.  and  W.  from  West  Africa,'  p.  411. 
"  W.  Gregory,  '  Letters  on  Animal  Magnetism,'  p.  128. 
'  Eyre,  'Australia,'  vol.  ii.  p.  361 ;  Collins,  'New  South  Wales,*  vol.  i. 
pp.  561,  594. 

♦  Shortt,  in  '  Tr.  Eth.  Soc.'  vol.  vi.  p.  278. 

*  Bastian,  '  Mensch,'  vol.  iii.  p.  117. 
e  See  Grote,  vol.  iii.  pp.  113,  351. 

'  Hardy,  'Eastern  Monachism,'  p.  241. 


118 


SURVIVAL   IN  CULTURK. 


nil 


m 


Iff' 


the  covirse  of  civilization.  Their  common  theory  may  be 
readily  made  out  from  a  few  typical  cases,  and  thence  applied 
confidently  to  the  general  mass.  The  Australian  will 
observe  the  track  of  an  insect  near  a  grave,  to  ascertain  the 
direction  where  the  sorcerer  is  to  be  found,  by  whose  craft 
the  man  died.^  The  Zulu  may  be  seen  chewing  a  bit  of 
wood,  in  order,  by  this  symbolic  act,  to  soften  the  heart  of 
the  man  ho  wants  to  buy  oxen  from,  or  of  the  woman  he 
wants  for  a  wife.''  The  Obi-man  of  West  Africa  makes  his 
packet  of  grave-dust,  blood,  and  bones,  that  this  suggestive 
representation  of  death  may  bring  his  enemy  to  the  grave.^ 
The  Khond  sots  up  the  iron  arrow  of  the  War-god  in  a 
basket  of  rice,  and  judges  from  its  standing  upright  tha  war 
must  be  kept  up  also,  or  from  its  falling  that  the  ij,u-.rTel 
may  be  let  fall  too ;  and  when  he  tortures  human  victims 
sacrificed  to  the  Earth -goddess,  he  rejoices  to  see  them  shed 
plentiful  tears,  which  betoken  copious  showers  to  fall  upon 
his  land.*  These  are  fair  examples  of  the  symbolic  magic 
of  the  lower  races,  and  they  are  fully  riva,lled  in  supersti- 
tions which  still  hold  their  ground  in  Europe.  With  quaint 
simplicity,  the  German  cottager  declared  that  if  a  dog 
howls  looking  downward,  it  portends  a  death ;  but  if  upward, 
then  a  recovery  from  sickness."  Locks  must  be  opened  and 
bolts  drawn  in  a  dying  man's  house,  that  his  soul  may  not 
be  held  fast."  The  Hessian  lad  thinks  that  he  may  escape  the 
conscription  by  carrying  a  baby-girl's  cap  in  his  pocket — a 
symbolic  way  of  repudiating  manhood.'  Modern  Servians, 
dancing  and  singing,  lead  about  a  little  girl  dressed  in 
leaves  and  flowers,  and  pour  bowls  of  water  over  her  to 
make  the  rain  come.^     Sailors  becalmed  will  sometimes 


»  Oldfleld,  in  'Tr.  Eth.  Soc'  vol.  iii.  p.  246. 
^  Grout,  'Zulu-land,'  p.  134. 

'  See  specimen  and  description  in  the  Christy  Museum. 
*  Macpherson,  '  India,'  pp.  130,  363. 
'  Wuttke,  '  Volksaberglaubo,'  p.  31. 

«  R.  Hunt,  '  Pop.  Rom.  of  W.  of  England,"  2nd  ser.  p.  165  ;  Brand,  '  Pop. 
Ant.'  vol.  ii.  p.  231. 

'  Wuttke,  p.  100.  «  Grimm,  '  D.  M.'  p.  560. 


\\mi\ 


try  may  be 
ice  applied 
alian   will 
certain  the 
vrhose  craft 
Off  a  bit  of 
lie  heart  of 
woman  he 
t  makes  his 
suggestive 
the  grave.'' 
ir-god  in  a 
tit  tha!  war 
the  liuarrel 
lan  victims 
i  them  shed 
;o  fall  upon 
ibolic  xnagic 
in  supersti- 
ith  quaint 
if  a  dog 
it  if  upward, 
[opened  and 
lul  may  not 
escape  the 
pocket — a 
;n  Servians, 
dressed  in 
ver  her  to 
sometimes 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


119 


whistle  for  a  wind ;  but  in  other  weather  they  hate 
whistling  at  sea,  which  raises  a  whistling  galo.^  Fish, 
says  the  Cornishman,  should  be  eaten  from  the  tail 
towards  the  head,  to  bring  the  other  fishes'  heads  towards 
the  shore,  for  eating  them  the  wrong  way  turns  them  from 
the  coast.^  He  who  has  cut  himself  should  rub  the 
knife  with  fat,  and  as  it  dries,  the  wound  will  heal ;  this  is 
a  lingering  survival  from  days  when  recipes  for  sympathetic 
ointment  were  to  be  found  in  the  Pharmacopoeia.^  Fanciful 
as  these  notions  are,  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  they 
come  fairly  under  definite  mental  law,  depending  as  they  do 
on  a  principle  of  ideal  association,  of  which  we  can  quite 
understand  the  mental  action,  though  we  deny  its  practical 
results.  The  clever  Lord  Chesterfield,  too  clover  to  under- 
stand folly,  may  again  be  cited  to  prove  this.  He  relates  in 
one  of  his  letters  that  the  king  had  been  ill,  and  that  people 
generally  expected  the  illness  to  be  fatal,  because  the  oldest 
lion  in  the  Tower,  about  the  king's  age,  had  just  died.  '  So 
wild  and  capricious  is  the  human  mind,*  he  exclaims,  by 
way  of  comment.  But  indeed  the  thought  was  neither  wild 
nor  capricious,  it  was  simply  such  an  argument  from  analogy 
as  the  educated  world  has  at  length  painfully  learnt  to  be 
worthless  ;  but  which,  it  is  not  too  much  to  declare,  would 
to  this  day  carry  considerable  weight  to  the  minds  of  four- 
fifths  of  the  human  race. 

A  glance  at  those  magical  arts  which  have  been  systema- 
tized into  pseudo-sciences,  shows  the  same  underlying 
principle.  The  art  of  taking  omens  from  seeing  and  meet- 
ing animals,  which  includes  augury,  is  familiar  to  such 
savages  as  the  Tupis  of  Brazil  *  and  the  Dayaks  of  Borneo,* 
and  extends  upward  through  classic  civilization.  The 
Maoris  may  give  a  sample  of  the  character  of  its  rules :  they 


'  Brand,  vol.  iii,  p.  240. 
»  Hunt,  ibid.  p.  148. 
3  Wuttke,  p.  165 


Brand,  vol.  iii.  p. 


305. 


Brand,  'Pop. 


*  Magalhanes  de  Gandavo,  p.  125  ;  D'Orbigny,  vol.  ii.  p.  168. 

»  St.  John,  '  Far  East,'  vol.  i.  p.  202  ;  '  Journ.  Ind.  Archip.'  vol.  ii.  p. 


857. 


120 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


■■  II 


i'\ 


t  : 


hold  it  unlucky  if  anoTvl  hoots  (luring  a  consultation,  but  a 
council  of  war  is  encouraged  by  prospect  of  victory  when  a 
hawk  flies  overhead ;  a  flight  of  birds  to  the  right  of  the 
war-sacrifice  is  propitious  if  the  villages  of  the  tribe  are  in 
that  quarter,  but  if  the  omen  is  in  the  enemy's  direction 
the  war  will  be  given  up.^  Compare  these  with  the  Tatar 
rules,  and  it  is  obvious  that  similar  thoughts  lie  at  the 
source  of  both.  Here  a  certain  little  owl's  cry  is  a  sound  of 
terror,  although  there  is  a  white  owl  which  is  lucky ;  but  of 
all  birds  the  white  falcon  is  most  prophetic,  and  the  Kalmuk 
bows  his  thanks  for  the  good  omen  when  one  flies  by  on  the 
right,  but  seeing  one  on  the  left  turns  away  his  face  and 
expects  calamity.^  So  to  the  negro  of  Old  Calabar,  the  cry 
of  the  great  kingfisher  bodes  good  or  evil,  according  as  it  is 
heard  on  the  right  or  left.'  Here  we  have  the  obvious  sym- 
bolism of  the  right  and  left  hand,  the  foreboding  of  ill  from 
the  owl's  doleful  note,  and  the  suggestion  of  victory  from 
the  fierce  swooping  hawk,  a  thought  which  in  old  Europe 
made  the  bird  of  prey  the  warrior's  omen  of  conquest. 
Meaning  of  the  same  kind  appears  in  the  '  Angang,'  the 
omens  taken  from  meeting  animals  and  people,  especially  on 
first' going  out  in  the  morning,  as  when  the  ancient  Slaves 
held  meeting  a  sick  man  or  an  old  woman  to  bode  ill-luck. 
Any  one  who  takes  the  trouble  to  go  into  this  subject  in 
detail,  and  to  study  the  classic,  medieeval,  and  oriental  codes 
of  rules,  will  find  that  the  principle  of  direct  symbolism  still 
accounts  for  a  fair  proportion  of  them,  though  the  rest  may 
have  lost  their  early  significance,  or  may  have  been  originally 
due  to  some  other  reason,  or  may  have  been  arbitrarily 
invented  (as  a  considerable  proportion  of  such  devices  must 
necessarily  be)  to  fill  up  the  gaps  in  the  system.  It  is  still 
plain  to  us  why  the  omen  of  the  crow  should  be  different  on 
the  right  or  left  hand,  why  a  vulture  should  mean  rapacity, 
a  stork  concord,  a  pelican  piety,  an  ass  labour,  why  the 


•  Yate,  '  New  Zealand,'  p.  90 ;  Polack,  vol.  i.  p.  248. 

^  Klemm,  *  Cultur-Gesch.'  vol.  iii.  p.  202. 

^  Burton,  '  Wit  and  Wisdom  from  West  Africa,'  p,  381. 


SUBVIVAL  IN   OULTUKE. 


121 


tion,  but  a 
>ry  when  a 
^ht  of  the 
:ibo  are  in 
J  direction 
the  Tatar 
lie  at  the 
a  sound  of 
cy ;  but  of 
bo  Kalmuk 
I  by  on  the 
s  face  and 
or,  the  cry 
ing  as  it  is 
vious  sym- 
;  of  ill  from 
ctory  from 
)ld  Europe 
'   conquest, 
igang,*  the 
pecially  on 
ent  Slaves 
e  ill-luck, 
subject  in 
ntal codes 
)olism  still 
rest  may 
originally 
irbitrarily 
dees  must 
It  is  still 
fFerent  on 
rapacity, 
why  the 


fierce  conquering  wolf  should  bo  a  good  omen,  and  the  timid 
hare  a  bad  one,  why  bees,  types  of  an  obedient  nation, 
should  be  lucky  to  a  king,  while  flies,  returning  however 
often  they  are  dri  v'on  off,  should  be  signs  of  importunity  and 
impudence.^  And  as  to  the  general  principle  that  animals 
are  ominous  to  those  who  meet  them,  the  German  peasant 
who  says  a  flock  of  sheep  is  lucky  but  a  herd  of  swine  un- 
lucky to  meet,  and  the  Cornish  miner  who  turns  away  in 
horror  when  he  meets  an  old  woman  or  a  rabbit  on  his  way 
to  the  pit's  mouth,  are  to  this  day  keeping  up  relics  of  early 
savagery  as  genuine  as  any  flint  implement  dug  out  of  a 
tumulus. 

The  doctrine  of  dreams,  attributed  as  they  are  by  the 
lower  and  middle  races  to  spiritual  intercourse,  belongs  in 
so  far  rather  to  religion  than  to  magic.  But  oneiromancy, 
the  art  of  taking  omens  from  dreams  by  analogical  interpre- 
tation, has  its  place  here.  Of  the  leading  principle  of  such 
mystical  explanation,  no  better  types  could  be  chosen  than 
the  details  and  interpretations  of  Joseph's  dreams  (Genesis 
xxxvii.,  xl.,  xli.),  of  the  sheaves  and  the  sun  and  moon  and 
eleven  stars,  of  the  vine  and  the  basket  of  meats,  of  the  lean 
and  fat  kine,  and  the  thin  and  full  corn-ears.  Oneiromancy, 
thus  symbolically  interpreting  the  things  seen  in  dreams,  is 
not  unknown  to  the  lower  races.  A  whole  Australian  tribe 
has  been  known  to  decamp  because  one  of  them  dreamt  of  a 
certain  kind  of  owl,  which  dream  the  wise  men  declared  to 
forebode  an  attack  from  a  certain  other  tribe.''  The  Kam- 
chadals,  whose  minds  ran  much  on  dreams,  had  special  in- 
terpretations of  some ;  thus  to  dream  of  lice  or  dogs  be- 
tokened a  visit  of  Russian  travellers,  &c.^  The  Zulus,  ex- 
perience  having  taught  them  the  fallacy  of  expecting  direct 
fulfilment  of  dreams,  have  in  some  cases  tried  to  mend 


'  See  Cornelius  Agrippa,  'De  Occulta  Philosophia,'  i.  53;  'DoVanitate 
Scient.'  37;  Grimm,  'D.  M.'  p.  1073;  Hanusch,  'Slaw.  Myth.'  p.  2«5  ; 
Brand,  vol.  iii.  pp.  184-227. 

»  Oldfield  in  '  Tr.  Eth.  Soc'  vol.  iii.  p.  241. 

8  Steller,  '  Kamtachatka,'  p.  279. 


122 


SURVIVAL   IN   CULTURE. 


matters  by  rushing  to  the  other  extreme.  If  they  dream  of 
a  sick  man  that  he  is  dead,  and  they  see  the  earth  poured 
into  the  grave,  and  hear  the  funeral  lamentation,  and  see  all 
his  things  destroyed,  then  they  say,  '  Because  we  have 
dreamt  of  his  death  he  will  not  die.'  But  if  they  dream 
of  a  wedding- dance,  it  is  a  sign  of  a  funeral.  So  the 
Maoris  hold  that  a  kinsman  dreamt  of  as  dying  will  recover, 
but  to  see  him  well  is  a  sign  of  death.^  Both  races  thus 
work  out,  by  the  same  crooked  logic  that  guided  our  own 
ancestors,  the  axiom  that  '  dreams  go  by  contraries.'  It 
could  not  be  expected,  in  looking  over  the  long  lists  of  pre- 
cepts of  classic,  oriental,  and  modern  popular  dream-inter- 
pretation, to  detect  the  original  sense  of  all  their  readings. 
Many  must  turn  on  allusions  intelligible  at  the  time,  but  now 
obscure.  The  Moslem  dream-interpretation  of  eggs  as  con- 
cerning women,  because  of  a  saying  of  Mohammed  about 
women  being  like  an  egg  hidden  in  a  nest,  is  an  example 
which  will  serve  as  well  as  a  score  to  show  how  dream-rules 
may  turn  on  far-fetched  ideas,  not  to  be  recognized  unless 
the  key  happens  to  have  been  preserved.  Many  rules  must 
have  been  taken  at  random  to  fill  up  lists  of  omens,  and  of 
contingencies  to  match  them.  Why  should  a  dream  of 
roasting  meat  show  the  dreamer  to  be  a  backbiter,  or 
laughter  in  sleep  presage  difficult  circumstances,  or  a  dream 
of  playing  on  the  clavicord  the  death  of  relatives  1  But  the 
other  side  of  the  matter,  the  still  apparent  nonsensical 
rationalitj'  of  so  many  dream-omens,  is  much  more  remark- 
able. It  can  only  be  considered  that  the  same  symbolism 
that  lay  at  the  root  of  the  whole  delusion,  favoured  the  keep- 
ing up  and  new  making  of  such  rules  as  carried  obvious 
meaning.  Take  the  Moslem  ideas  that  it  is  a  good  omen  to 
dream  of  something  white  or  green,  or  of  water,  but  bad  to 
dream  of  black  or  red,  or  of  fire ;  that  a  palm-tree  indicates  an 
Arab,  and  a  peacock  a  king ;  that  he  who  dreams  of  devour- 
ing the  stars  will  live  free  at  some  great  man's  table.  Take 
the  classic  rules  as  in  the  '  Oneirocritica '  of  Artemidorus, 
»  Callaway,  'Rel.  of  Amazulu,'  pp.  236,  241 ;  R.  Taylor,  'N.  Z.'  p.  334. 


"li::, 


'  dream  of 
bh  poured 
md  see  all 
we  have 
ley  dream 
.     So  the 
11  recover, 
races  thus 
i  our  own 
aries.'     It 
ists  of  pre- 
eam-inter- 
7  readings. 
le,  but  now 
jgs  as  con- 
med  about 
n  example 
iream-rules 
ized  unless 
rules  must 
ins,  and  of 
dream  of 
ikbiter,   or 
ir  a  dream 
1    But  the 
lonsensical 
•e  remark- 
lymbolism 
the  keep- 
id  obvious 
id  omen  to 
lut  bad  to 
idicates  an 
if  devour- 
ile.     Take 
emidorus, 
1.  Z.'  p.  334. 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTURE, 


123 


and  pass  on  through  the  mediseval  treatises  down  to  such  a 
dream-dictionary  as  servant-maids  still  buy  in  penny  chap- 
books  at  the  fair,  and  it  will  be  seen  that  the  ancient  rules 
still  hold  their  places  to  a  remarkable  extent,  while  half  the 
mass  of  precepts  still  show  their  original  mystic  significance, 
mostly  direct,  but  occasionally  according  to  the  rule  of  con- 
traries. An  offensive  odour  signifies  annoyance  ;  to  wash 
the  hands  denotes  release  from  anxieties ;  to  embrace  one's 
best  beloved  is  very  fortunate ;  to  have  one's  feet  cut  off 
prevents  a  journey ;  to  weep  in  sleep  is  a  sign  of  joy  j  he 
who  dreams  he  hath  lost  a  tooth  shall  lose  a  friend  ;  and  he 
that  dreams  that  a  rib  is  taken  out  of  his  side  shall  ere  long 
see  the  death  of  his  wife ;  to  follow  bees,  betokens  gain  ;  to 
be  married  signifies  that  some  of  your  kinsfolk  are  dead ;  if 
one  sees  many  fowls  together,  that  shall  be  jealousy  and 
chiding ;  if  a  snake  pursue  him,  let  him  be  on  his  guard 
against  evil  women  ;  to  dream  of  death,  denotes  happiness 
and  long  life ;  to  dream  of  swimming  and  wading  in  the 
water  is  good,  so  that  the  head  be  kept  above  water ;  to 
dream  of  crossing  a  bridge,  denotes  you  will  leave  a  good 
situation  to  seek  a  better ;  to  dream  you  see  a  dragon  is  a 
sign  that  you  shall  see  some  great  lord  your  master,  or  a 
magistrate.^ 

Haruspication  belongs,  among  the  lower  races,  especially 
to  the  Malays  and  Polynesians,^  and  to  various  Asiatic 
tribes.^  It  is  mentioned  as  practised  in  Peru  under  the 
Incas.*  Captain  Burton's  account  from  Central  Africa 
perhaps  fairly  displays  its  symbolic  principle.  He 
describes  the  mganga  or  sorcerer  taking  an  ordeal  by  kill- 


'  Artemidoiiis,  '  Oneirocritica  ; '  Cockayne,  '  Leochdoms,  &c.,  of  Early 
England,'  vol.  iii. ;  Seafield,  'Literature,  &c.,  of  Dreams;'  Brand,  vol.  iii. ; 
Halliwell,  'Pop.  Rhymes,  &c.,'  p.  217,  &c.,  &c. 

2  St.  John,  'Far  East,'  vol.  i.  pp.  74,  115  ;  Ellis,  'Polyn.  Res.'  vol.  iv. 
p.  150  ;  Polack,  '  New  Zcalanders,'  vol.  i.  p.  255. 

'  Goorgi,  '  Reiso  im  Russ.  Reich,'  vol.  i.  p.  281 ;  Hooker,  '  Himalayan 
Journals,'  vol.  i.  p.  135  ;  'As.  Res.'  vol.  iii.  p.  27  ;  Latham,  '  Descr.  Eth." 
vol.  i.  p.  61. 

♦  Cieza  de  Leon,  p.  289  ;  Rivero  and  Tschudi,  'Peru,'  p.  183. 


124 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


/ 


ll 


m 


y 


ing  and  splitting  a  fowl  and  inspecting  its  inside :  if  black- 
ness or  blemish  appears  about  the  wings,  it  denotes  the 
treachery  of  children  and  kinsmen ;  the  backbone  convicts  the 
mother  and  grandmother ;  the  tail  shows  that  the  criminal 
is  the  wife,  &c.^    In  ancient  Rome,  where  the  art  held  so 
great  a  place  in  public  affairs,  the  same  sort  of  interpretation 
was  usual,  as  witness  the  omen  of  Augustus,  where  the  livers 
of  the  victims  were  found  folded,  and  the  diviners  prophesied 
him  accordingly  a  doubled  empire.^     Since  then,  haruspica- 
tion  has  died  out  more  completely  than  almost  any  magical 
rite,  yet  even  now  a  characteristic  relic  of  it  may  be  noticed 
in  Brandenburg ;  when  a  pig  is  killed  and  the  spleen  is 
found  turned  over,  there  will  be  another  overthrow,  namely 
a  death  in  the  family  that  year.^    With  haruspication  may 
be  classed  the  art  of  divining  by  bones,  as  where  North 
American  Indians  would  put  in  the  fire  a  certain  flat  bone 
of  a  porcupine,  and  judge  from  its  colour  if  the  porcupine 
hunt  would  be  successful.^    The  principal  art  of  this  kind  is 
divination  by  a  shoulder-blade,  technically  called  scapuli- 
mancy  or  omoplatoscopy.     This  art,  related  to  the   old 
Chinese  divination  by  the  cracks  of  a  tortoise-shell  on  the 
fire,  is  especially  found  in  vogue  in  Tartary.     Its  simple 
symbolism  is  well  shown  in  the  elaborate  account  with 
diagrams  given  by  Pallas.      The   shoulder-blade  is   put 
on  the  fii'e  till  it  cracks  in  various  directions,  and  then  a 
long  split  lengthwise  is  reckoned  as   the  '  way  of  life,' 
while  cross-cracks  on  the  right  and  left  stand  for  different 
kinds  and  degrees  of  good  and  evil  fortune ;  or  if  the  omen 
is  only  taken  as  to  some  special  event,  then  lengthwise  splits 
mean  going  on  well,  but  crosswise  ones  stand  for  hindrance, 
white  marks  portend  much  snow,  black  ones  a  mild  winter, 
&c.*    To  find  this  quaint  art  lasting  on  into  modern  times 

>  Burton,  '  Central  Afr.'  vol.  ii.  p.  32  ;  Waitz,  vol.  ii.  pp.  417,  518. 
^  Plin.  xi.  73.    See  Cic.  de  Divlnatione,  ii.  12. 
'  Wuttke,  'Volksaberglaube,'  p.  32. 
*  Le  Jeune,  *  Nouvelle  France,'  vol.  i.  p.  90. 

"  J.  H.  Plath,  *  Eel.  d.  alten  Chineson,'  part  i.  p.  89  ;  Klemm,  'Cultur. 
Gesch.'  vol.  iii.  pp.  109,  199 ;  vol.  iv.  p.  221 ;  Rubruquis,  in  Pinkerton, 


ifblack- 
lotes  the 
ivicta  the 
criminal 
t  held  BO 
■pretation 
the  livers 
rophesied 
laruspica- 
y  magical 
be  noticed 
spleen  is 
w,  namely 
ition  may 
ere  North 
.  flat  bone 
porcupine 
his  kind  is 
|d  scapuli- 
the  old 
lell  on  the 
ts  simple 
)unt  with 
ie  is   put 
ad  then  a 
of  life,' 
different 
the  omen 
wise  splits 
lindrance, 
lid  winter, 
ern  times 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


125 


V,  0 


18. 


|im,  'Cultur. 
Pinkerton, 


in  Europe,  we  can  hardly  go  to  a  better  place  than  our  own 
country ;  a  proper  English  term  for  it  is  '  reading  the  speal- 
bone  '  {8peal=espaule).  In  Ireland,  Camden  describes  the 
looking  through  the  blade-bone  of  a  sheep,  to  find  a  dark 
spot  which  foretells  a  death,  and  Drayton  thus  commemo- 
rates the  art  in  his  Polyolbion : — 

'  By  th'  shoulder  of  a  ram  from  off  the  right  side  par'd, 
Which  usually  they  boile,  the  spade-bone  being  bar'd, 
Which  when  the  wizard  takes,  and  gazing  therupon 
Things  long  to  come  foreshowes,  as  things  done  long  agone.'  * 

Chiromancy,  or  palmistry,  seems  much  like  this,  though  it 
is  also  mixed  up  with  astrology.  It  flourished  in  ancient 
Greece  and  Italy  as  it  still  does  in  India,  where  to  say,  '  It 
is  written  on  the  palms  of  my  hands,'  is  a  usual  way  of  ex- 
pressing a  sense  of  inevitable  fate.  Chiromancy  traces  in 
the  markings  of  the  palm  a  line  of  fortune  and  a  line  of  life, 
finds  proof  of  melancholy  in  the  intersections  on  the  satur- 
nine mount,  presages  sorrow  and  death  from  black  spots  in 
the  finger-nails,  and  at  last,  having  exhausted  the  powers  of 
this  childish  symbolism,  it  completes  its  system  by  details  of 
which  the  absurdity  is  no  longer  relieved  by  even  an  ideal 
sense.  The  art  has  its  modern  votaries  not  merely  among 
Gypsy  fortune-tellers,  but  in  what  is  called  'good 
society.'  ^ 

It  may  again  and  again  thus  be  noticed  in  magic  arts, 
that  the  association  of  ideas  is  obvious  up  to  a  certain  point. 
Thus  when  the  New  Zealand  sorcerer  took  omens  by  the 
way  his  divining  sticks  (guided  by  spirits)  fell,  he  quite 
naturally  said  it  was  a  good  omen  if  the  stick  representing 
his  own  tribe  fell  on  top  of  that  representing  the  enemy, 
and  vice  versS,.  Zulu  diviners  still  work  a  similar  process 
with  their  magical  pieces  of  stick,  which  rise  to  say  yes  and 

vol.  vii.  p.  65 ;  Grimm,  '  D.  M.'  p.  1067 ;  R.  F.  Burton,  '  Sindh,'  p.  189 ; 
M.  A.  Walker,  '  Macedonia,'  p.  169. 

'  Brand,  vol.  iii.  p.  339  ;  Forbes  Leslie,  ^'ol.  ii.  p.  491. 

"  Maury,  '  Magie,  &c.,'  p.  74  ;  Brand,  vol.  iii.  p.  348,  &c.  See  figure  in 
Cornelius  Agrippa,  '  De  Occult.  Philosoph.'  ii.  27. 


\ 


126 


SURVIVAL   IN  CULTURE. 


.m 


i 


fall  to  say  no,  jump  upon  the  head  or  stomach  or  other 
affected  part  of  the  patient's  body  to  show  where  his  com- 
plaint is,  and  lie  pointing  towards  the  house  of  the  doctor 
who  can  cure  him.  So  likewise,  where  a  similar  device  was 
practised  ages  ago  in  the  Old  World,  the  responses  were 
taken  from  staves  which  (by  the  operation  of  daemons)  fell 
backward  or  forward,  to  the  right  or  left.^  But  when 
processes  of  this  kind  are  developed  to  complexity,  the 
system  has,  of  course,  to  be  completed  by  more  arbitrarj'^ 
arrangements.  This  is  well  shown  in  one  of  the  divinatory 
arts  mentioned  in  the  last  chapter  for  their  connexion  with 
games  of  chance.  In  cartomancy,  the  art  of  fortune-telling 
with  packs  of  cards,  there  is  a  sort  of  nonsensical  sense  in 
such  rules  as  that  two  queens  mean  friendship  and  four 
mean  chattering,  or  that  the  knave  of  hearts  prophesies  a 
brave  young  man  who  will  come  into  the  family  to  be  use- 
ful, unless  his  purpose  be  reversed  by  his  card  being  upside 
down.  But  of  course  the  pack  can  only  furnish  a  limited 
number  of  such  comparatively  rational  interpretations,  and 
the  rest  must  be  left  to  such  arbitrary  fancy  as  that  the 
seven  of  diamonds  means  a  prize  in  the  lottery,  and  the 
ten  of  the  same  suit  an  unexpected  journey.^ 

A  remarkable  group  of  divining  instruments  illustrates 
another  principle.  In  South-east  Asia,  the  Sgau  Karens, 
at  funeral  feasts,  hang  a  bangle  or  metal  ring  by  a  thread 
over  a  brass  basin,  which  the  relatives  of  the  dead  approach 
in  succession  and  strike  on  the  edge  with  a  bit  of  bamboo  ; 
when  the  one  who  was  most  beloved  touches  the  basin,  the 
dead  man's  spirit  responds  by  twisting  and  stretching  the 
string  till  it  breaks  and  the  ring  falls  into  the  cup,  or  at 
least  till  it  rings  against  it.^    Nearer  Central  Asia,  in  the 


'  R.  Taylor,  '  New  Zealand,'  p.  205  ;  Shortland,  p.  139  ;  Callaway,  '  Re- 
ligion of  Aina/ulu,'  p.  330,  &c.  ;  Theophylact.  in  Brand,  vol.  iii.  p.  332. 
Compare  mentions  of  similar  devices  ;  Herodot.  iv.  67  (Scythia)  ;  Burton, 
*  Central  Africa,'  vol.  ii.  p.  350. 

^  Migne's  '  Die.  des  Sciences  Occultes,' 

^  Mason,  '  Karens,'  in  '  Journ.  As.  Soc.  Bengal,'  1865,  part  ii.  p.  200 ; 
Bastian,  '  Oestl.  Asien,'  vol.  i.  p.  146. 


SURVIVAL  IN   CULTURE. 


127 


or  other 
!  his  com- 
he  doctor 
evice  was 
Qses  were 
mons)  fell 
kit  when 
exity,  the 

arbitrary 
livinatory 
xion  with 
ine-telling 
1,1  sense  in 

and  four 
jphesies  a 
to  be  use- 
ing  upside 

a  limited 
tions,  and 
1  that  the 
and  the 

illustrates 
u  Karens, 

a  thread 
approach 

bamboo  ; 
3asin,  the 
ching  the 
up,  or  at 
iia,  in  the 

laway,  '  Re- 

iii.  p.  332. 

i)  ;  Burton, 

ii.  p.  200  ; 


north-east  corner  of  India,  among  the  Bodo  and  Dhimal,  the 
professional  exorcist  has  to  find  out  what  deity  has  entered 
into  a  patient's  body  to  punish  him  for  some  impiety  by  an 
attack  of  illness ;  this  he  discovers  by  setting  thirteen  leaves 
round  him  on  the  ground  to  represent  the  gods,  and  then 
holding  a  pendulum  attached  to  his  thumb  by  a  string,  till 
the  god  in  question  is  persuaded  by  invocation  to  declare 
himself,  x^aking  the  pendulum  swing  towards  his  representa- 
tive leaf ^  These  mystic  arts  (not  to  go  into  the  question 
how  these  tribes  came  to  use  them)  are  rude  forms  of  the 
classical  dactyliomancy,  of  which  so  curious  an  account  is 
given  in  the  trial  of  the  conspirators  Patricius  and  Hilarius, 
who  worked  it  to  find  out  who  was  to  supplant  the  emperor 
Valens.  A  round  table  was  marked  at  the  edge  with  the 
letters  of  the  alphabet,  and  with  prayers  and  mystic  cere- 
monies a  ring  was  held  suspended  over  it  by  a  thread,  and 
by  swinging  or  stopping  towards  certain  letters  gave  the  re- 
sponsive words  of  the  oracle."  Dactyliomancy  has  dwindled 
in  Europe  to  the  art  of  finding  out  what  o'clock  it  is  by 
holding  a  ring  hanging  inside  a  tumbler  by  a  thread,  till, 
without  conscious  aid  by  the  operator,  it  begins  to  swing 
and  strikes  the  hour.  Father  Schott,  in  his  'Physica 
Curiosa '  (1662),  refrains  with  commendable  caution  from 
ascribing  this  phenomenon  universally  to  demoniac  influence. 
It  survives  among  ourselves  in  child's  play,  and  though  we 
are  '  no  conjurors,'  we  may  learn  something  from  the  little 
instrument,  which  remarkably  displays  the  effects  of  in- 
sensible movement.  The  operator  really  gives  slight 
impulses  till  they  accumulate  to  a  considerable  vibration,  as 
in  ringing  a  church-bell  by  very  gentle  pulls  exactly  timed. 
That  he  does,  though  unconsciously,  cause  and  direct  the 
swings,  may  be  shown  by  an  attempt  to  work  the  instrument 
with  the  operator's  eyes  shut,  which  will  be  found  to  fail,  the 
directing  power  being  lost.  The  action  of  the  famous  divin- 
ing-rod with  its  curiously  versatile  sensibility  to  water,  ore, 


*  Hodgson,  *  Abor.  of  India,'  p,  170. 
'  Axnmian.  Marcellin.  xxix.  1. 


»ee  Macpherson,  p.  106  (Khonda). 


128 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


m- 


J      :i 


treasure,  and  thieves,  seems  to  belong  partly  to  trickery  by 
professional  Doustersw  ivels,  and  partly  to  more  or  less  con- 
scious direction  by  honester  operators.  It  is  still  known 
in  England,  and  in  Germany  they  are  apt  to  hide  it  in 
a  baby's  clothes,  and  so  get  it  baptized  for  greater  effi- 
ciency.^ To  conclude  this  group  of  divinatory  instruments, 
chance  or  the  operator's  direction  may  determine  the  action 
of  one  of  the  most  familiar  of  classic  and  medireval  ordeals, 
the  so-called  coscinomancy,  or,  as  it  is  described  in 
Hudibras,  'th'  oracle  of  sieve  and  shears,  that  turns  as 
certain  as  the  spheres.'  The  sieve  was  held  hanging 
by  a  thread,  or  by  the  points  of  a  pair  of  shears  stuck  into 
its  rim,  and  it  would  turn,  or  swing,  or  fall,  at  the  mention 
of  a  thief's  name,  and  give  similar  signs  for  other  purposes. 
Of  this  ancient  rite,  the  Christian  ordeal  of  the  Bible  and 
key,  still  in  frequent  use,  is  a  variation :  the  proper  way 
to  detect  a  thief  by  this  is  to  read  the  50th  Psalm  to  the 
apparatus,  and  when  it  hears  the  verse, '  When  thou  sawest 
a  thief,  then  thou  consentedst  with  him,'  it  will  turn  to  the 
culprit.^ 

Count  de  Maistre,  with  his  usual  faculty  of  taking  an 
argument  up  at  the  wrong  end,  tells  us  that  judicial 
astrology  no  doubt  hangs  to  truths  of  the  first  order,  which 
have  been  taken  from  us  as  useless  or  dangerous,  or  which 
we  cannot  recognize  under  their  new  forms.^  A  sober 
examination  of  the  subject  may  rather  justify  the  contrary 
opinion,  that  it  is  on  an  error  of  the  first  order  that  astro- 
logy depends,  the  error  of  mistaking  ideal  analogy  for  real 
connexion.  Astrology,  in  the  immensity  of  its  delusive 
influence  on  mankind,  and  by  the  comparatively  modem 
period  to  which  it  remained  an  honoured  branch  of  philo- 


*  Chevr'^ul,  '  De  la  Baguette  Divinatoire,  du  Pendule  dit  Exploratsui-, 
et  des  Tables  Tournantea,'  Paris,  1854  ;  Brand,  vol.  iii.  p.  332  ;  Grimm, 
'  D.  M.'  p.  926  ;  H  B.  Woodward,  in  '  Geological  Mag.,'  Nov.  1872  ;  Wuttke, 
p.  94. 

"  Cornelius  Agrippa,  'DeSpeeiebusMagiaj,' xxi.  ;  Brand,  vol.  iii.  p.  351 ; 
Grimm,  '  D.  M.'  p.  1062. 

'  De  Maistre,  '  Soirees  de  St.  Petersbourg,'  vol.  ii.  p.  212. 


pickery  by 
r  less  con- 
ill  known 
hide  it  in 
eater  effi- 
struments, 
the  action 
al  ordeals, 
icribed    in 

turns   as 

d  hanging 

stuck  into 

le  mention 

r  purposes. 

Bible  and 
)roper  way 
aim  to  the 
hou  sawest 
turn  to  the 

taking  an 
it  judicial 
:der,  which 
),  or  which 

A   sober 

e  contrary 

bat  astro- 

■y  for  real 

delusive 
|ly  modem 

of  philo- 

lExploratfiur, 
132  ;  Grimm, 
|72  ;  Wuttke, 

|l.  iii.  p.  351 ; 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


129 


sophy,   may  claim  the   highest  rank    among  the   occult 
sciences.     It  scarcely  belongs  to  very  low  levels  of  civiliza- 
tion, although  one  of  its  fundamental  conceptions,  namely, 
that  of  the  souls  or  animating  intelligences  of  the  celestial 
bodies,  is  rooted  in  the  depths  of  savage  life.    Yet  the  fol- 
lowing Maori  specimen  of  astrological  reasoning  is  as  real 
an  argument  as  could  be  found  in  Paracelsus  or  Agrippa,  nor 
is  there  reason  to  doubt  'ts  being  home-made.     When  the 
siege  of  a  new  Zealand  'pa   is  going  on,  if  Venus  is  near  the 
moon,  the  natives  naturally  imagine  the  two  as  enemy  and 
fortress  ;  if  the  planet  is  above,  the  foe  will  have  the  upper 
hand ;  but  if  below,  then  the  men  of  the  soil  will  be  able  to 
defend  themselves.^    Though  the  early  history  of  astrology 
is  obscure,  its  great  development  and  elaborate  systema- 
tization  were  undoubtedly  the  work  of  civilized  nations  of 
the  ancient  and  mediteval  world.  As  might  be  well  supposed, 
a  great  part  of  its  precepts  have  lost  their  intelligible  sense, 
or  never  had  any,  but  the  origin  of  many  others  is  still 
evident.      To   a   considerable  extent  they  rest  on  direct 
symbolism.      Such  are   the  rules  which  connect  the  sun 
with  gold,  with  the  heliotrope  and  pseony,  with  the  cock 
which  heralds  day,  with  magnanimous  animals,  such  as  the 
lion  and  bull ;  and  the  moon  with  silver,  and  the  changing 
chamajleon,  and  the   palm-tree,  which  was   considered  to 
send  out  a  monthly  shoot.     Direct  symbolism  is  plain  in 
that  main   principle  of  the  calculation  of  nativities,   the 
notion  of  the  '  ascendant '  in  the  horoscope,  which  reckons 
the  part  of  the  heavens  lising  in  the  east  at  the  moment  of 
a  child's  birth  as  being  connected  with  the  child  itself,  and 
prophetic  of  its  future  life.^     It  is  an  old  stojy,  that  when 
two  brothers  were  once  taken  ill  together,  Hippokrates  the 
physician  concluded  from  the  coincidence  that  they  were 
twins,  but  Poseidonios  the  astroloirer  considered  rather  that 
they  were  born  under  the  same  constellation :  we  may  add, 

'  Shortland,  'Trads.,  &c.  of  New  Zealand,'  p.  138. 

'^  See  Cicero,  '  De  Div.'  i.  ;  Lucian.  '  De  Astrolog.  ; '  Cornelius  Agrippa, 
'  De  Occulta  Philosophia  ;'  Sibly.  'Occult  Sciences  ; '  Brand,  vol.  iii. 

VOL.  I.  K 


130 


SURVIVAL   IN   CULTURE. 


that  either  argument  would  be  thought  reasonable  by  a 
savage.  One  of  the  most  instructive  astrological  doctrines 
which  has  kept  its  place  in  modern  popular  philosophy,  is 
that  of  the  sympathy  of  growing  and  declining  nature  with 
the  waxing  and  waning  moon.  Among  classical  precepts 
are  these :  to  set  eggs  under  the  hen  at  now  moon,  but  to 
root  up  trees  when  the  moon  is  on  the  wane,  and  after 
midday.  The  Lithuanian  precept  to  wean  boys  on  a  wax- 
ing, but  girls  on  a  waning  moon,  no  doubt  to  make  the 
boys  sturdy  and  the  girls  slim  and  delicate,  is  a  fair  match 
for  the  Orkney  islanders'  objection  to  marrying  except  with 
a  growing  moon,  while  some  even  wish  for  a  flowing  tide. 
The  following  lines,  from  Tusser's  'Five  Hundred  Points 
of  Husbandry,'  show  neatly  in  a  single  case  the  two  con- 
trary lunar  influences  : — 

'  Sowe  peason  and  beans  in  the  wane  of  the  moone 
Who  soweth  them  sooner,  he  soweth  too  scone : 
That  they,  with  the  planet,  may  rest  and  rise, 
And  flourish  with  bearing,  most  plentiful  wise.' ' 

The  notion  that  the  weather  changes  with  the  moon's 
(luarterings  is  still  held  with  great  vigour  in  England. 
Yet  the  meteorologists,  with  all  their  eagerness  to  catch  at 
any  rule  which  at  all  answers  to  facts,  quite  repudiate  this 
one,  which  indeed  appears  to  be  simply  a  maxim  belonging 
to  popular  astrology.  Just  as  the  growth  and  dwindling  of 
plants  became  associated  with  the  moon's  wax  and  wane, 
so  changes  of  weather  became  associated  with  changes  of 
the  moon,  while,  by  astrologers'  logic,  it  did  not  matter 
whether  the  moon's  change  were  real,  at  new  and  full,  or 
imaginary,  at  the  intermediate  quarters.  That  educated 
people  to  whom  exact  weather  records  are  accessible  should 
still  find  satisfaction  in  the  fanciful  lunar  rule,  is  an  in- 
teresting case  of  intellectual  survival. 

In  such  cases  as  these,  the  astrologer  has  at  any  rate  a 
real  analogy,  deceptive  though  it  be,  to  base  his  rule  upon. 


•  Plin.  xvi.  75  ;  xviii.  75  ;  Grimm,  '  D.  M.'  p.  676  ;  Brand,  vol.  ii.  p.  169  ; 
vol.  iii.  p.  144. 


SURVIVAL   IN   C  tTUKE. 


181 


able  by  a 
1  doctrines 
losophy,  is 
lature  with 
il  precepts 
oon,  but  to 
,  and  after 

on  a  wax- 
»  make  the 

fair  match 
3xcept  with 
jwing  tide, 
ked  Points 
le  two  con- 


Tioone 

ne  : 

ie, 
>  1 


ae. 

the   moon's 
England, 
to  catch  at 
ludiate  this 
belonging 
indling  of 
and  wane, 
changes  of 
Lot  matter 
,nd  full,  or 
,t  educated 
lible  should 
is  an  in- 


any 


rate  a 


I  rule  upon. 

toI.  ii.  p.  169  ; 


But  most  of  his   pseudo-science   seems  to  rest  on  even 
weaker  and  more  arbitrary  analogies,  not  of  things,  but  of 
names.     Names  of  stars  and  constellations,  of  signs  denot- 
ing regions  of  the  sky  and  periods  of  days  and  years,  no 
matter   how  arbitrarily  given,   are  materials  which  the 
astrologer  can  work  upon,  and  bring  into  ideal  connexion 
with   mundane  events.      That   astronomers   should   have 
divided  the  sun's  course  into  imaginary  signs  of  the  zodiac, 
was  enough   to    originate   astrological    rules   that   these 
celestial  signs  have  an  actual  effect  on  real  earthly  rams, 
bulls,  crabs,  lions,  virgins.     A  child  born  under  the  sign 
of  the  Lion  will  be  courageous;  but  one  born  under  the 
Crab  will  not  go  forward  well  in  life ;  one  born  under  the 
Waterman  is  likely  to  be  drowned,  and  so  forth.     Towards 
1524,  Europe  was  awaiting  in  an  agony  of  prayerful  terror 
a  second  deluge,  piophesied  for   February  in  that  year. 
As  the  fatal  month  drew  nigh,  dwellers  by  the  waterside 
moved  in  crowds  to  the  hills,  some  provided  boats  to  save 
them,  and  the  President  Aurial,  at  Toulouse,  built  himself 
a  Noah's  Ark.     It  was  the  great  astrologer  Stoefler  (the 
originator,  it  is  said,   of  the  weather-prophecies  in    our 
almanacks)  who  foretold  this  cataclysm,  and  his  argument 
has  the  advantage  of  being  still  perfectly  intelligible — at 
the  date  in  question,  three  planets  would  be  together  in  the 
aqueous   sign   of  Pisces.      Again,  simply   because   astro- 
nomers chose  to  distribute  among  the  planets  the  names  of 
certain  deities,  the  planets  thereby  acquired  the  characters 
of  their  divine  namesakes.     Thus  it  was  that  the  planet 
Mercury  became  connected  with  travel,  trade,  and  theft, 
Venus  with  love  and  m'rth,  Mars  with  war,  Jupiter  with 
power  and  'joviality.'      Throughout  the  East,  astrology 
even  now  remains  a  science  in  full  esteem.     The  condition 
of  mediaeval  Europe  may  still   be  perfectly  realized  by 
the  traveller  in   Persia,  where  the  Shah  waits  for  days 
outside  the   walls  of  his   capital  till  the   constellations 
allow  him  to  enter,  and  where  on  the  days  appointed  by  the 
stars  for  letting  blood,  it  literally  flows  in  streams  from  the 

K  2 


132 


StTRVIVAL   IN  CULTURE. 


Ji  .:i:^ 


N:  ':, 


bai'bers'  shops  into  the  street.  Professor  Wuttke  declares 
that  there  are  many  districts  in  Germany  where  the  child's 
horoscope  is  still  regularly  kept  with  the  baptismal  certifi- 
cate in  the  family  chest.  We  scarcely  reach  this  pitch  of 
conservatism  in  England,  but  I  happen  myself  to  live  within 
a  mile  of  an  astrologt :,  and  I  lately  saw  a  gi'ave  paper 
on  nativities,  offered  in  all  good  faith  to  the  British 
Association.  The  piles  of  '  Zadkiel's  Almanack '  in  the 
booksellers'  windows  in  country  towns  about  Christmas 
are  a  symptom  how  much  yet  remains  to  be  done  in  popular 
education.  As  a  specimen  at  once  of  the  survival  and  of 
the  meaning  of  astrologic  reasoning,  I  cannot  do  better 
than  quote  a  passage  from  a  book  published  in  London  in 
1861,  and  entitled,  'The  Hand-Book  of  Astrology,  by 
Zadkiel  Tao-Sze.'  At  page  72  of  his  first  volume,  the 
astrologer  relates  as  follows :  '  The  Map  of  the  heavens 
given  at  page  45  was  drawn  on  the  occasion  of  a  young 
lady  having  been  arrested  on  a  charge  of  the  murder  of  her 
infant  brother.  Having  read  in  a  newspaper,  at  twenty 
four  minutes  past  noon  on  the  23rd  July,  1860,  that  Miss 
C.  K.  had  been  aiTested  on  a  charge  of  the  murder  of  her 
young  brother,  the  author  felt  desirous  to  ascertain  whether 
she  were  guilty  or  not,  and  drew  the  map  accordingly. 
Finding  the  moon  in  the  twelfth  house,  she  clearly  signifies 
the  prisoner.  The  moon  is  in  a  moveable  sign,  and  moves 
in  the  twenty-four  hours,  14°  17'.  She  is,  therefore,  swift 
in  motion.  These  things  indicated  that  the  prisoner  would 
be  very  speedily  released.  Then  we  find  a  moveable  sign 
in  the  cusp  of  the  twelfth,  and  its  ruler,  ?  ,  in  a  moveable 
sign,  a  further  indication  of  speedy  release.  Hence  it  was 
judged  and  declared  to  many  friends  that  the  prisoner 
would  be  immediately  released,  which  was  the  fact.  We 
looked  to  see  whether  the  prisoner  were  guilty  of  the  deed 
or  not,  and  finding  the  Moon  in  Libra,  a  humane  sign,  and 
having  just  past  the  -X-  aspect  of  the  Sun  and  11,  both 
being  on  the  M.  C.  we  felt  assured  that  she  was  a  humane, 
feeling,   and  honourable   girl,  and  that  it  was  quite  im-. 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


133 


tke  declares 
e  the  child's 
smal  certifi- 
this  pitch  of 
0  live  within 
grave  paper 
the   British 
ack '  in   the 
,t  Christmas 
le  in  popular 
•vival  and  of 
ot  do  better 
n  London  in 
3trology,   by- 
volume,  the 
the  heavens 
of  a  young 
lurder  of  her 
•,  at  twenty 
)0,  that  Miss 
urder  of  her 
tain  whether 
accordingly, 
irly  signifies 
,  and  moves 
refore,  swift 
aoner  would 
3veable  sign 
a  moveable 
ence  it  was 
lie  prisoner 

fact.  We 
of  the  deed 
le  sign,  and 
ad  11,  both 
B  a  humane, 

quite  im-1 


possible  she  could  be  guilty  of  any  such  atrocity.  We 
declared  her  to  be  perfectly  innocent,  and  as  the  Moon  was 
so  well  aspectod  from  the  tenth  house,  wo  declared  that  her 
honour  would  be  very  soon  perfectly  established.'  Had 
the  astrologer  waited  a  few  months  longer,  to  have  read 
the  confession  of  the  miserable  Constance  Kent,  ho  would 
perhaps  have  put  a  difierent  sense  on  his  moveable  signs, 
just  balances,  and  sunny  and  jovial  aspects.  Nor  would 
this  be  a  difficult  task,  for  these  fancies  lend  themselves  to 
endless  variety  of  now  interpretation.  And  on  such  fancies 
and  such  interpretations,  the  great  science  of  the  stars  has 
from  first  to  last  been  based. 

Looking  at  the  details  hero  selected  as  fair  samples  of 
symbolic  magic,  we  may  well  ask  the  question,  is  there  in 
the  whole  monstrous  farrago  no  truth  or  value  whatever '? 
It  appears  ihat  there  is  practically  none,  and  that  the  world 
has  been  enthralled  for  ages  by  a  blind  belief  in  processes 
wholly  irrelevant  to  their  supposed  results,  and  which 
might  as  well  have  been  taken  just  the  opposite  way. 
Pliny  justly  saw  in  magic  a  study  worthy  of  his  especial 
attention,  '  for  the  very  reason  that,  being  the  most  fraudu- 
lent of  arts,  it  had  prevailed  throu<^hout  the  world  and 
through  so  many  ages '  (eo  ipso  quod  fi'audulentissima 
artium  plurimum  in  toto  terrarum  orbe  plurimisque  seculis 
valuit).  If  it  be  asked  how  such  a  system  could  have  held 
its  ground,  not  merely  in  independence  but  in  defiance  of 
its  own  facts,  a  fair  answer  does  not  seem  hard  to  give.  In 
the  first  place,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  occult  science 
has  not  existed  entirely  in  its  own  strength.  Futile  as  its 
arts  may  be,  they  are  associated  in  practice  with  other 
proceedings  by  no  means  futile.  What  are  passed  off  as 
sacred  omens,  are  often  really  the  cunning  man's  shrewd 
guesses  at  the  past  and  future.  Divination  serves  to  the 
sorcerer  as  a  mask  for  real  inquest,  as  when  the  ordoal 
gives  him  invaluable  opportunity  of  examining  the  guilty, 
whose  trembling  hands  and  equivocating  speech  betray  at 
once  their  aecrec  and  their  utter  belief  in  his  power  of 


134 


HIIIVIVAL   IN   CULTl'UB. 


W' 


■  <  l''l 


1,1  i 


(iiBCorning  it.  Prophecy  tends  to  fulfil  itself,  an  where  the 
magician,  by  putting  into  a  victim's  mind  the  belief  that 
fatal  arts  have  been  praotiued  against  him,  can  slay  him 
with  this  idea  as  with  a  material  weapon.  Often  priest  as 
well  as  magician,  he  has  tlio  whole  power  of  religion  at  his 
back ;  often  a  man  in  power,  always  an  unscrupulous 
intriguer,  he  can  work  witchcraft  and  statecraft  together, 
and  make  his  left  hand  help  his  right.  Often  a  doctor,  he 
can  aid  his  omens  of  life  or  death  with  nuucdy  or  poison, 
while  what  we  still  call  '  conjurors'  tricks '  of  sleight  of 
hand,  have  done  much  to  keep  up  his  supernatural  prestige. 
From  the  earliest  known  stages  of  civilization,  professional 
magicians  have  existed,  who  live  by  their  craft,  and  keep  it 
alive.  It  has  been  said,  that  if  somebody  had  endowed 
lecturers  to  teach  that  two  sides  of  a  triangle  are  together 
equal  to  the  thirtl,  the  doctrine  would  have  a  respectable 
following  among  ourselves.  At  any  rate,  magic,  with  an 
influential  profession  interested  in  keeping  it  in  credit  and 
power,  did  n:t  depend  for  its  existence  on  mere  evidence. 

And  in  the  second  place,  as  to  this  evidence.  Magic  has 
not  its  origin  in  fraud,  and  seems  seldom  practised  as  an. 
utter  imposture.  The  sorcerer  generally  learns  his  time-' 
honoured  profession  in  good  faith,  and  retains  his  belief  in 
it  more  or  less  from  first  to  last;  at  once  dupe  and  cheat, 
he  combines  the  energy  of  a  believer  with  the  cunning  of  a 
hypocrite.  Had  occult  science  been  simply  framed  for 
purposes  of  deception,  mere  nonsense  would  have  answered 
the  purpose,  wlnreas,  what  we  fin«]  is  an  elaborate  and 
systematic  pseudu-science.  It  is,  in  fact,  a  sincere  but 
fallacious  system  ot  philosophy,  evolved  by  the  human 
intellect  by  procosscH  still  in  great  measure  intelligible  to 
our  own  minds,  and  it  had  tlvus  an  original  standing- ground 
in  the  world.  And  though  the  evidence  of  fact  was  dead 
against  it,  it  was  but  lately  and  gradually  that  this  evidence 
was  brought  fatally  to  bear.  A  general  survey  of  the 
practical  working  of  the  system  may  be  made  somewhat 
thus.     A  large  proportion  oi'  successful   cases   belong  to 


m 


HUIIVIVAL    IN    CULTUKK. 


135 


18  where  the 
belief  that 
m  slay  him 
len  pricHt  as 
liglon  at  his 
nncrupulous 
it't  together, 
a  doctor,  ho 
Y  or  poiBon, 
tf  sleight  of 
iral  prestige, 
professional 
and  keep  it 
ad  endowed 
are  together 
respectable 
fie,  with  an 
1  credit  and 
!  evidence. 

Magic  has 

ttisod  as  an' 

is  his  time-' 

is  belief  in' 

and  cheat, 

unning  of  a 

Tamed  for 

e  answered 

-borate  and 

dncere   but 

the   human 

eiligible  to 

ing- ground 

was  dead 

is  evidence 

vay  of  the 

somewhat 

belong  to 


natural  means  disguised  as  magic.  Also,  a  certain  propor- 
tion of  cases  must  succeed  by  mere  chance.  By  far  the 
larger  proportion,  however,  are  what  we  shoidd  call  failures  ; 
but  it  is  a  part  of  the  magician's  profession  to  keep  these 
from  counting,  and  this  he  does  with  extraordinary  resource 
of  rhetorical  shift  and  brazen  impudence.  He  deals  in 
ambiguous  phrases,  which  give  him  three  or  four  chances 
for  one.  He  knows  perfectly  how  to  impose  difficult 
conditions,  and  to  lay  the  blame  of  failure  on  their  neglect. 
If  you  wish  to  make  gold,  the  alchemist  in  Central  Asia 
has  a  recipe  at  your  service,  only,  to  use  it,  you  must 
abstain  three  days  from  tlunking  of  apes;  just  as  our 
English  folk-lore  says,  that  if  one  of  your  eyelashes  comes 
out,  and  you  put  it  on  your  thumb,  you  will  get  nnything 
you  wish  for,  if  you  can  only  avoid  thinking  of  foxes'  tails 
at  the  fatal  moment.  Again,  if  the  wrong  thing  happens, 
the  wizard  has  at  least  a  reason  why.  Has  a  daughter 
been  born  when  he  promised  a  son,  then  it  is  souiu  hostile 
practitioner  who  has  turned  the  boy  into  a  girl ;  does  a 
tempest  come  just  when  he  is  making  fine  weather,  then 
ho  calmly  demands  a  l  ^er  Ko  for  stronger  ceremonies, 
assuring  his  clients  that  they  may  thank  him  as  it  is,  for 
how  much  worse  it  would  have  been  had  he  not  done  what 
he  did.  And  even  setting  aside  all  this  accessory  trickery, 
if  we  look  at  honest  but  unscientific  people  practising 
occult  science  in  good  faith,  and  face  to  face  with  facts, 
we  shall  see  that  the  failures  which  condemn  it  in  our 
eyes  carry  comparatively  little  weight  in  theirs.  Part 
escape  under  the  elastic  pretext  of  a  'little  mori  or  less,' 
as  the  loser  in  the  lottery  consoles  himself  that  his  lucky 
number  came  within  two  of  a  prize,  or  the  moon-observer 
points  out  triumphantly  that  a  change  of  weather  has  come 
within  two  or  three  days  before  or  after  a  quarter,  so  that 
his  convenient  definition  of  near  a  moon's  quarter  applies 
to  four  or  six  days  out  of  every  seven.  Part  escape  through 
incapacity  to  appreciate  negative  evidence,  which  allows 
one  success  to  outweigh  half-a-dozen  failures.     How  few 


(tJJ 
Li  -^ 


136 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


Bii_ 


there  are  even  among  the  educated  classes  now,  who 
have  taken  in  the  drift  of  that  memorable  passage  in  the 
beffinning  of  the  '  Novum  Organum : ' — '  The  human  under- 
standing,  when  any  proposition  has  been  once  laid  down 
(either  from  general  admission  and  belief,  or  from  the 
pleasure  it  affords),  forces  everything  else  to  add  fresh 
support  and  confirmation ;  and  although  most  cogent  and 
abundant  instances  may  exist  to  the  contrary,  yet  either 
does  not  observe  or  despises  them,  or  gets  rid  of  and 
rejects  them  by  some  distinction,  with  violent  and  injurious 
prejudice,  rather  than  sacrifice  the  authority  of  its  first 
conclusions.  It  was  well  answered  by  him  who  was  shown 
in  a  temple  the  votive  tablets  suspended  by  such  as  had 
escaped  the  peril  of  shipwreck,  and  was  pressed  as  to 
whether  he  would  then  recognize  the  power  of  the  gods, 
by  an  inquiry,  "  But  whore  are  the  portraits  of  those  who 
have  perished  in  spite  of  their  vows  ?  "  '^ 

On  the  whole,  the  survival  of  symbolic  magic  through  the 
middle  ages  and  into  our  own  times  is  an  unsatisfactory,  but 
not  a  mysterious  fact.  A  once-established  opinion,  however 
delusive,  can  hold  its  own  from  age  to  age,  for  belief  can 
propagate  itself  without  reference  to  its  reasonable  origin, 
as  plants  are  propagated  from  slips  without  fresh  raising 
from  the  seed. 

The  history  of  survival  in  cases  like  those  of  the  folk-lore 
and  occult  arts  which  we  have  been  considering,  has  for  the 
most  part  been  a  history  of  dwindling  and  decay.  As  men's 
minds  change  in  progressing  culture,  old  customs  and 
opinions  fade  gradually  in  a  new  and  uncongenial  atmo- 
sphere, or  pass  into  states  more  congruous  with  the  now  life 
around  them.  But  this  is  so  far  from  being  a  law  without 
exception,  that  a  narrow  view  of  history  may  often  make  it 
seem  to  be  no  law  at  all.  For  the  stream  of  civilization  winds 
and  turns  upon  itself,  and  what  seems  the  bright  onward 
curroit  of  one  age  may  in  the  next  spin  round  in  a  whirling 

*  Bacon,  '  Novum  Organum.'    The  original  story  is  that  of  Dingo ras  ;  seo 
Cicero,  '  De  Natura  Dt'onim,'  ill.  37  ;  Diog.  LaSrt.  lib.  vi.,  Diogenes,  6. 


low,  who 
bge  in  the 
an  under- 
aicl  down 

from  the 
add  fresh 
ogent  and 
yet  either 
id  of  and 
I  injurious 
f  its  first 
vas  shown 
ch  as  had 
sed   as   to 

the  gods, 
those  who 

irough  the 
tctory,  but 
1,  however 
belief  can 


le  origin, 
1  raising 


folk-lore 
las  for  the 
As  men's 
oms  and 
ial  atmo- 
e  new  life 

without 
n  make  it 
ion  winds 
b  onward 

whirling 

agnras  ;  seo 
■nos,  (5. 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


137 


eddy,  or  spread  into  a  dull  and  pestilential  swamp.  Study- 
ing with  a  wide  view  the  course  of  human  opinion,  we  may 
now  and  then  trace  on  from  the  very  turning-point  the 
change  from  passive  survival  into  active  revival.  Some 
well-known  belief  or  custom  has  for  centuries  shown 
symptoms  of  decay,  when  we  begin  to  see  that  the  state  of 
society,  instead  of  stunting  it,  is  favouring  its  new  growth, 
and  it  bursts  forth  again  with  a  vigour  often  as  marvellous 
as  it  is  unhealthy.  And  though  the  revival  be  not  destined 
to  hold  on  indefinitely,  and  though  when  opinion  turns 
again  its  ruin  may  be  more  merciless  than  before,  yet  it 
may  last  for  ages,  make  its  way  into  the  inmost  constitution 
of  society,  and  even  become  a  very  mark  and  characteristic 
of  its  time. 

Writers  who  desire  to  show  that,  with  all  our  faults,  we 
are  wiser  and  better  than  our  ancestors,  dwell  willingly  on 
the  history  of  witchcraft  between  the  middle  and  modern 
ages.  They  can  quote  Martin  Luther,  apropos  of  the 
witches  who  spoil  the  farmers'  butter  and  eggs,  '  I  would 
have  no  pity  on  these  witches ;  I  would  burn  them  all.' 
They  can  show  the  good  Sir  Matthew  Hale  hanging  witches 
in  Suffolk,  on  the  authority  of  scripture  and  the  consenting 
wisdom  of  all  nations ;  and  King  James  presiding  at  the 
torture  of  Dr.  1  uin  for  bringing  a  storm  against  the  king's 
ship  on  its  course  from  Denmark,  by  the  aid  of  a  fleet  of 
witches  in  sieves,  who  carried  out  a  christened  cat  to  sea.  In 
those  dreadful  days,  to  be  a  blear-eyed  wizened  cripple  was 
to  be  worth  twenty  shillings  to  a  witch-finder ;  for  a  woman 
to  have  what  this  witch-finder  was  pleased  to  call  the  devil's 
mark  on  her  body  was  presumption  for  judicial  sentence  of 
death ;  and  not  to  bleed  or  shed  tears  or  sink  in  a  pond  was 
torture  first  and  then  the  stake.  Reform  of  religion  was  no 
cure  for  the  disease  of  men's  minds,  for  in  such  things  the 
Puritan  was  no  worse  than  the  Inquisitor,  and  no  better. 
Papist  and  Protestant  fought  with  one  another,  but  both 
turned  against  that  enemy  of  the  human  race,  the  hag  who 
had  sold  herself  to  Satan  to  ride  upon  a  broomstick,  and  to 


Illll 


138 


SUEVIVAL   IN   CULTURE. 


li 


li 

1 

"'} 

1 

!  ii 

1; 

"" 

/ 

suck  children's  blood,  and  to  be  for  life  and  death  of  all 
creatures  the  most  wretched.  But  with  new  enlightenment 
there  came  in  the  very  teeth  of  law  and  authority  a  change 
in  European  opinion.  Toward  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century  the  hideous  superstition  was  breaking  down  among 
ourselves;  Richard  Baxter,  of  the  'Saint's  Rest,'  strove 
with  fanatic  zeal  to  light  again  at  home  the  witch-fires  of 
New  England,  but  he  strove  in  vain.  Year  by  year  the 
persecution  of  witches  became  more  hateful  to  the  educated 
classes,  and  though  it  died  hard,  it  died  at  last  down  to  a 
vestige.  In  our  days,  when  we  read  of  a  witch  being 
burnt  at  Camargo  in  1860,  we  point  to  Mexico  as  a 
country  miserably  in  the  rear  of  civilization.  And  if  in 
England  it  still  happens  that  village  boors  have  to  be  tried 
at  quarter-sessions  for  ill-using  some  poor  old  woman,  who 
they  fancy  has  dried  a  cow  or  spoiled  a  turnip  crop,  we 
comment  on  the  tenacity  with  which  the  rustic  mind  clings 
to  exploded  follies,  and  cry  out  for  more  schoolmasters. 

True  as  all  this  is,  the  ethnographer  must  go  wider  and 
deeper  in  his  inquiry,  to  do  his  subject  justice.  The  pre- 
vailing belief  in  witchcraft  that  sat  like  a  nightmare  on  public 
opinion  from  the  13th  to  the  17th  centuries,  far  from  being 
itself  a  product  of  mediievalism,  was  a  revival  from  the 
remote  days  of  primaeval  history.  The  disease  that  broke  out 
afresh  in  Europe  had  been  chronic  among  the  lower  races 
for  how  many  ages  we  cannot  tell.  Witchcraft  is  part  and 
parcel  of  savage  life.  There  are  rude  races  of  Australia 
and  South  America  whose  intense  belief  in  it  has  led  them 
to  declare  that  if  men  were  never  bewitched,  and  never 
killed-  by  violence,  they  would  not  die  at  all.  Like  the 
Australians,  the  Africans  will  enquire  of  their  dead  what 
sorcerer  slew  them  by  his  wicked  arts,  and  when  they  have 
satisfied  themselves  of  this,  blood  must  atone  for  blood. 
In  West  Africa,  it  has  been  boldly  asserted  that  the  belief 
in  witchcraft  costs  more  lives  than  the  slave  trade  ever  did. 
In  East  Africa,  Captain  Burton,  a  traveller  apt  to  draw  his 
social  sketches  in  a  few  sharp  lines,  remarks  that  what  with 


SURVIVAL   IN   CULTURE. 


189 


ath  of  all 
fhtenment 
a  change 
venteenth 
ivn  among 
3t,'  strove 
eh-fires  of 
year  the 
»  educated 
down  to  a 
tch  being 
sico   as   a 
And  if  in 
to  be  tried 
)man,  who 
)  crop,  we 
liud  clings 
asters, 
wider  and 
The  pre- 
B  on  public 
i-om  being 
from  the 
broke  out 
»wer  races 
part  and 
Australia 
led  them 
nd   never 
Like  the 
ead  what 
they  have 
or  blood, 
ihe  belief 
ever  did. 
draw  his 
,'hat  with 


slavery  and  what  with  black-magic,  life  is  precarious  among 
the  Wakhutu,  and  '  no  one,  especially  in  old  age,  is  safe  from 
being  burnt  at  a  day's  notice ; '  and,  travelling  in  the  country 
of  the  Wazaramo,  he  tells  us  of  meeting  every  few  miles  with 
heaps  of  ashes  and  charcoal,  now  and  then  such  as  seemed  ^ 
to  have  been  a  father  and  mother,  with  a  little  heap  hard  by 
that  was  a  child.^  Even  in  districts  of  British  India  a 
state  of  mind  ready  to  produce  horrors  like  these  is  well 
known  to  exist,  and  to  be  kept  down  less  by  persuasion 
than  by  main  force.  From  the  level  of  savage  life,  we  trace 
witchcraft  surviving  throughout  the  barbarian  and  early 
civilized  world.  It  was  existing  in  Europe  in  the  centuries 
preceding  the  10th,  but  with  no  especial  prominence,  while 
laws  of  Kothar  and  Charlemagne  are  actually  directed 
again  i  as  should  put  men  or  women  to  death  on  the 

charg  u..  svitchcraft.  In  the  11th  century,  ecclesiastical 
influence  was  discouraging  the  superstitious  belief  in  sorcery. 
But  now  a  period  of  reaction  set  in.  The  works  of  the 
monastic  legend  and  miracle-mongers  more  and  more  en- 
couraged a  baneful  credulity  as  to  the  supernatural.  In  the 
13th  century,  when  the  spirit  of  religious  persecution  had 
begun  to  possess  all  Europe  with  a  dark  and  cruel  madness,the 
doctrine  of  witchcraft  revived  with  all  its  barbaric  vigour.- 
That  the  guilt  of  thus  bringing  down  Europe  intellectually 
and  morally  to  the  level  of  negro  Africa  lies  in  the  main 
upon  the  Roman  Church,  the  records  of  Popes  Gregory  IX. 
and  Innocent  VIII.,  and  the  history  of  the  Holy 
Inquisition,  are  conclusive  evidence  to  prove.  To  us  here 
the  main  interest  of  mediaeval  witchcraft  lies  in  the  extent 
and  accuracy  with  which  the  theory  of  survival  explains  it. 
In  the  very  details  of  the  bald  conventional  accusations  that 
were   sworn  against  the   witc'ues,  there    may  be   traced 

'  Du  C'liaillu,  ' Ashango-land,'  pp.  428,  435;  Burton,  'Central  Afr,' 
vol.  i.  pp.  f)7,  113,  121. 

'■'  See  Grimm,  *  D.  M.'  ch.  xxxiv.  ;  Lecky,  'Hist,  of  Rationalism,'  vol.  i. 
chap.  i. ;  Horst,  '  Znuber-Bibliothek  ; '  Raynald,  'Annalea  Eeolesiastici,' 
vol.  ii.,  Greg.  IX.  (1233),  xli-ii.:  vol,  xi.,  Innoc.  VIII.  (1484),  Ixxiv. 


\v 


140 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


tradition  often  hardly  modified  from  barbarous  and  savage 
times.  They  raised  stc  ms  by  magic  rites,  they  had  charms 
again;  the  hurt  of  we;  jous,  they  had  their  assemblies  on 
wild  heath  and  mountain-top,  they  could  ride  through  the 
air  on  beasts  and  even  turn  into  witch-cats  and  were-wolvea 
themselves,  they  had  familiar  spirits,  they  had  intercourse 
with  incuLi  and  succubi,  they  conveyed  thorns, pins, feathers, 
and  such  things  into  their  victims'  bodies,  they  caused  disease 
by  demoniacal  possession,  they  oould  bewitch  by  spells  and 
the  evil  eye,  by  practising  on  images  and  symbols,  on  food 
and  property.  Now  all  this  is  sheer  survival  from  prre- Chris- 
tian ages,  '  in  errore  paganorum  revolvitur,'  as  Burchard 
of  Worms  said  of  the  superstition  of  his  time.^  Two  of  the 
most  familiar  devices  used  against  the  mediaeval  witches  may 
serve  to  show  the  place  in  civilization  of  the  whole  craft. 
The  Oriental  jinn  are  in  such  deadly  terror  of  iron,  that 
its  very  name  is  a  charm  against  them ;  and  so  in  European 
folk-lore  iron  drives  away  fairies  and  elves,  and  destroys 
their  power.  They  are  essentially,  it  seems,  creatures 
belonging  to  the  ancient  Stone  Age,  and  the  new  metal  is 
hateful  and  hurtful  to  them.  Now  as  to  iron,  witches  are 
brought  under  the  same  category  as  elves  and  nightmares. 
Iron  instruments  keep  them  at  bay,  and  especially  iron 
horseshoes  have  been  chosen  for  this  purpose,  as  half  the 
stable  doors  in  England  still  show.^  Again,  one  of  the  best 
known  of  English  witch  ordeals  is  the  trial  by  '  fleeting  ' 
or  swimming.  Bound  liand  and  foot,  tho  accused  was  flung 
into  deep  water,  to  sink  if  innocent  and  swim  if  guilt)^,  and 
in  the  latter  case,  as  Hudibras  has  it,  to  be  hanged  only  for 
not  being  drowned.  King  James,  who  seems  to  have  had 
a  notion  of  the  real  primitive  meaning  of  this  rite,  says  in 
his  Dfemonology,  '  It  appeares  that  God  hath  appointed 


*  See  also  Dasent,  '  Introcl.  to  Norso  Talcs  ; '  Maury,  '  Magio,  &e.,' ch.  vii. 

*  Lano,  'Thousniid  and  Oiio  Nights,'  vol.  i.  p.  30;  Oiimin,  '  D.  M.'  pp. 
435,  465,  1056  ;  Bastian,  '  Mouseh.'  vol.  ii.  pp.  265,  2b7  ;  vol.  iii.  p.  204  ; 
D.  Wilson,  '  Prehistoric  Annals  of  Scotland,'  vol.  ii.  p.  126  ;  Wuttku, 
'  yolksaberglai-.be,'  pp.  15,  20,  122,  220. 


.  J,,.,.. 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTUEE. 


141 


0.,'  ch.  vii. 

D.  m;  pp. 

,  p.  204  ; 
Wuttko. 


for  a  supernatural  signe  of  the  monstioue  impietie  of 
witches,  that  the  water  shall  refuse  to  receive  tihem  in 
her  bosom  that  have  shaken  off  them  the  sacred  water  of 
baptism,'  &c.  Now,  in  early  German  history  this  same 
trial  by  water  was  well  known,  and  its  meaning  recognized 
to  be  that  the  conscious  element  rejects  the  guilty  (si  aqua 
ilium  velut  innoxium  receperit— innoxii  submerguntur 
aqua,  culpabiles  supernatant).  Already  in  the  9th  century  the 
laws  were  prohibiting  this  practice  as  a  relic  of  superstition. 
Lastly,  the  same  trial  by  water  is  recognized  as  one  of  the 
regular  judicial  ordeals  in  the  Hindu  code  of  Manu ;  if  the 
water  does  not  cause  the  accused  to  float  when  plunged  into 
it,  his  oath  is  true.  As  this  ancient  Indian  body  of  laws 
was  itself  no  doubt  compiled  from  materials  of  still  earlier 
date,  we  may  venture  to  take  the  correspondence  of  the 
water-ordeal  among  the  European  and  Asiatic  branches  of 
the  Aryan  race  as  carrying  back  its  origin  to  a  period  of 
remote  antiquity.^ 

Let  us  hope  that  if  the  belief  in  present  witchcraft,  and 
the  persecution  necessarily  enfcuing  upon  such  belief,  once 
more  come  into  prominence  in  the  civilized  world,  they  may 
appear  in  a  milder  shape  than  heretofore,  and  be  kept  down 
by  stronger  humanity  and  tolertmce.  But  any  one  who 
fancies  from  their  present  disappearance  that  they  have 
necessarily  disappeared  for  ever,  must  have  read  history  to 
little  purpose,  and  has  yet  to  learn  that '  revival  in  culture ' 
is  something  more  than  an  empty  pedantic  phrase.  Our 
own  time  has  revived  a  group  of  beliefs  and  practices  which 
have  their  roots  deep  in  the  very  stratum  of  early  philosophy 
where  witchcraft  makes  its  first  appearance.  This  group 
of  beliefs  and  practices  constitutes  what  is  now  commonly 
known  as  Spiritualism. 

Witchcraft  and  Spiritualism  have  existed  for  thousands 
of  years  in  a  closeness  of  union  not  unfairly  typified  in  this 

'  Brand,  '  Pop.  Ant.'  vol.  iii.  pp.  1-43;  Wuttke,  '  Volksaberglaubc,' p. 
50;  Grimm,  '  Deutsche  Rechtsaltorthumer,' p.  923 ;  Pietet,  '  Origines  Indo- 
Europ.'  part  ii.  p.  459  ;  Manu,  viii ,  114-5  :  see  Plin.  vii.  2. 


I 

i 


142 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


verse  from  John  Bale's  16th-century  Interlude  concerning 
Nature,  which  brings  under  one  head  the  art  of  bewitching 
vegetables  and  poultry,  and  causing  supernatural  movement 
of  stools  and  crockery. 

'  Theyr  wells  I  can  up  drye, 
Cause  trees  and  herbes  to  dye, 
And  alee  all  pulterye, 

Whereas  ^en  doth  me  move  : 
I  can  make  stoles  to  daunce 
And  earthen  pottes  to  praunce, 
That  none  shall  them  enhaunce. 

And  do  but  cast  my  glove.' 

The  same  intellectual  movement  led  to  the  decline  of  botli 
witchcraft  and  spiritualism,  till,  early  in  the  present  century, 
men  tt  ought  that  both  were  dying  or  all  but  dead  together. 
Now,  however,  not  only  are  spirits"  alists  to  be  counted  by 
tens  of  thousands  in  America  and  England,  but  there  are 
among  them  several  men  of  distinguished  mental  power.  I 
am  well  aware  that  the  problem  of  the  so-called  'spirit- 
manifestations  '  is  one  to  be  discussed  on  its  merits,  in 
order  to  arrive  at  a  distinct  opinion  how  far  it  may  be  con- 
cerned with  facts  insufficiently  appreciated  and  explained  by 
science,  and  how  far  with  superstition,  delusion,  and  sheer 
knavery.  Such  investigation,  pursued  by  careful  observation 
in  a  scientific  spirit,  would  seem  apt  to  throw  light  on  some 
most  interesting  psychological  questions.  But  though  it 
lies  beyond  my  scope  to  examine  the  spiritualistic  evidence 
for  itself,  the  ethnographic  view  of  the  matter  has,  neverthe- 
less, its  value.  This  shows  modern  spiritualism  to  be  in 
great  measure  a  direct  revival  from  the  regions  of  savage 
philosophy  and  peasant  folk-lore.  It  is  not  a  simple  ques- 
tion of  the  existence  of  certain  phenomena  of  mind  and 
matter.  It  is  that,  in  coimexion  with  these  phenomena,  a 
grpat  philosophic-religious  doctrine,  flourishing  in  the  lower 
culture  but  dwindling  in  the  higher,  has  re-established  itself 
in  full  vigour.  The  world  is  again  swarming  with  intelligent 
and  powerful  disembodied  spiritual  beings,  whose   direct 


SURVIVAL   IN   CULTURE. 


143 


savage 


action  on  thought  and  matter  is  again  confidently  asserted, 
as  in  those  times  and  countries  where  ihysical  science  had 
not  as  yet  so  far  succeeded  in  extruding  these  spirits  and 
their  influences  from  the  system  of  nature. 

Apparitions  have  regained  the  place  and  meaning  which 
they  held  from  the  level  of  the  lower  races  to  that  of  mediae- 
val Europe.  The  regular  ghost-stories,  in  A<rhich  spirits  of 
the  dead  walk  visibly  and  have  intercourse  with  corporeal 
men,  are  now  restored  and  cited  with  new  examples  as 
'glimpses  of  the  night-side  of  nature,'  nor  have  these 
stories  changed  either  their  strength  to  those  who  are  dis- 
posed to  believe  them,  or  their  weakness  to  those  who  are 
not.  As  of  old,  men  live  now  in  habitual  intercourse  with 
the  spirits  of  the  dead.  Necromancy  is  a  religion,  and  the 
Chinese  manes-worshipper  may  see  the  outer  barbai-ians 
come  back,  after  a  heretical  interval  of  a  few  centuries,  into 
sympathy  with  his  time-honoured  creed.  As  the  sorcerers 
of  barbarous  tribes  lie  in  bodily  lethargy  or  sleep  while 
the'r  souls  depart  on  distant  journeys,  so  it  is  not  uncommon 
in  modern  spiritualistic  narratives  for  persons  to  be  in  an  in- 
sensible state  when  their  apparitions  visit  distant  places, 
whence  they  bring  back  information,  and  where  they  com- 
municate with  the  living.  The  spirits  of  the  living  as  well 
as  of  the  dead,  the  souls  of  Strauss  and  Carl  Vogt  as  well  as 
of  Augustine  and  Jerome,  are  summoned  by  mediums  to 
distant  spirit- circles.  As  Dr.  Bastian  remarks,  if  any  cele- 
brated man  in  Europe  feels  himself  at  some  moment  in  a 
melancholy  mood,  he  may  console  himself  with  the  idea  that 
his  soul  has  been  sent  for  to  Araidcd,  to  assist  at  the 
'  rough  fixings  '  of  some  backwoodsmt-n.  Fifty  years  ago, 
Dr.  Macculloch,  in  his  *  Description  of  tee  Western  Islands 
of  Scotland,'  wrote  thus  of  the  famous  Highland  second- 
sight  :  '  In  fact  it  has  undergone  the  fate  of  witchcraft ; 
ceasing  to  be  believed,  it  has  ceased  to  exist.'  Yet  a  gene- 
ration later  he  wonld  have  found  it  reinstated  in  a  tar- 
larger  range  of  society,  and  under  far  bitter  circumstances 
of  learning  and  material  prosperity.   Among  the  influences 


til 

I 

r 


',''1 


144 


SURVIVAL   IN  CULTURE. 


which  have  combined  to  bring  about  the  spiiitualistic  renais- 
sance, a  prominent  place  may,  I  think,  be  given  to  the  effect 
produced  on  the  religious  mind  of  Europe  and  America  by 
the  intensely  animistic  teachings  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg, 
in  the  last  century.  The  position  of  this  remarkable 
visionary  as  to  some  of  the  pai'ticular  spiritualistic  doctrines 
may  be  judged  of  by  the  following  statements  from  *The 
True  Christian  Keligion.'  A  man's  spirit  is  his  mind,  which 
lives  after  death  in  complete  human  form,  and  this  spirit 
may  be  conveyed  fi*om  place  to  place  while  the  body  re- 
mains at  rest,  as  on  some  occasions  happened  to  Swedenborg 
hiuiself.  '  I  have  conversed,'  he  says,  *  with  all  my  rela- 
tions and  friends,  likewise  with  kings  and  princes,  and  men 
of  learning,  after  their  departure  out  of  this  life,  and  this 
now  for  twenty-seven  years  without  inteiTuption.'  And 
foreseeing  that  many  who  read  his  '  Memorable  Kelations,' 
will  believe  them  to  be  fictions  of  imagination,  he  protests  in 
truth  they  are  not  fictions,  but  were  really  seen  and  heard ; 
not  seen  and  heard  in  any  state  of  mind  in  sleep,  but  in  a 
state  of  complete  wakefulness.^ 

I  shall  have  to  speak  elsewhere  of  some  of  the  doctrines 
of  modern  spiritualism,  where  they  seem  to  fall  into  their 
places  in  the  study  of  A:  mism.  Here,  as  a  means  of  illus- 
trating the  relation  of  the  newer  to  the  olr'^^r  spiritualistic 
ideas,  I  propose  to  glance  over  the  ethnography  of  two  of  the 
most  popular  means  of  communicating  with  the  spirit- world, 
by  rapping  and  writing,  and  two  of  the  prominent  spirit- 
manifestations,  the  feat  of  rising  in  the  air,  and  the  trick  of 
the  Davenport  Brothers. 

The  elf  who  goes  knocking  and  routing  about  the  house 
at  night,  and  whose  special  German  name  is  the  '  Polter- 
geist,' is  an  old  and  familiar  personage  in  European  folk-lore.^ 
From  of  old,  such  unexplained  noises  have  been  ascribed  to 
the  agency  of  personal  spirits,  who  more  often  than  not  are 


'  Swedenborg,  'Tlio  True  Cl'iistiun  Religion,'  London,  1855,  Nos.  156. 
157,  281,  851. 
^  Grimm,  '  Deutsche  Myth.'  pp.  473,  481. 


1  I;:,:  , 


SURVIVAL   IN  CULTURE. 


143 


tic  renais- 
the  effect 
nerica  by 
edenborg, 
smarkable 
doctrines 
["rom  '  The 
nd,  which 
this  spirit 
5  body  re- 
vedenborg 
my  rela- 
1,  and  men 
s,  and  this 
on.'    And 
Relations,' 
protests  in 
md  heard ; 
p,  but  in  a 

doctrines 

into  their 

13  of  illus- 

ritualistic 

Itwo  of  the 

rit-world, 

nt  spirit- 

0  trick  of 

Ithe  house 
Polter- 
folk-lore.^ 
scribed  to 
Ln  not  are 

I5,  Nos.  156. 


considered  human  souls.    The  modern  Dayaks,  Siamese,  and 
Singhalese  agree  with  the  Esths  as  to  such  routing  and  rap- 
ping being  caused  by  spirits.^    Knockings  muy  be  considered 
mysterious  but  harmless,  like  those  which  in  Swabia  and 
Franconjw,  are  expected  during  Advent  on  the  Anklopferleins- 
Nachte,  or  '  Little  Knockera'  Nights.'  ^     Or  they  may  be 
useful,  as  when  the  Welsh  miners  think  that  the  *  knockers* 
they  hear  underground  are  indicating  the  rich  veins  of  lead 
and  silver. '^    Or  they  may  be  simply  annoying,  as  when,  in 
the  9th  century,  a  malignant  spirit  infested  a  parish  by 
knocking  at  the  walls  as  if  with  a  hammer,  but  being  over- 
come with  litanies  and  holy  water,  confessed  itself  to  be 
the  familiar  of  a  certain  wicked  priest,  and  to  have  been  in 
hiding  under  his  cloak.    Thus,  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
the  famous  demon-drummer  of  Tedworth,  commemorated 
by  Glanvil   in  the  'Saducismus   Triumphatus,'   thumped 
about  the  doors  and  the  outside  of  the  house,  and  '  for  an 
hour  together  it  would  beat  Roundheads  and  Cuckolds,  the  \ 
Tat-too,  and  several  other  Points  of  War,  as  well  as  any 
Drummer.'  *    But  popular  philosophy  has  mostly  attached 
to  such  mysterious  noises  a  foreboding  of  death,  the  knock 
being  held  as  a  signal  or  summons  among  spirits  as  among 
men.      The  Komans  considered  that  the  genius  of  death 
thus  announced  his  coming.     Modern  folk-lore  holds  either 
that  a  knocking  or  rumbling  in  the  floor  is  an  omen  of  a 
death  about  to  happen,  or  that  dying  persons  themselves 
announce  their  dissolution  to  their  friends  in  such  strange 
sounds.    The  English  rule  takes  in  both  cases :  '  Three  loud 
and  distinct  knocks  at  the  bed's  head  of  a  sick  person,  or  at 
the  bed's  head  or  door  of  any  of  his  relations,  is  an  omen  of 
his  death.'    We  happen  to  have  a  good  means  of  testing 

»  St.  John,  '  Far  East,'  vol.  i.  p.  82  ;  Bastian,  '  Psychologie,'  p.  Ill ;  '  Oestl. 
Asien,'  vol.  iii.  pp.  232,  259,  288  ;  Boeder,  'Ehsten  Aberglaube,'  p.  147. 

■  Bastian,  'Menseh,'  vol.  ii.  p.  74. 

='  Brand,  vol.  ii.  p.  486. 

*  Glanvil,  'Saduciamus  Triumphatus,'  i>art  ii.  The  invisible  drummer 
appears  to  have  been  one  William  Drury  j  seo  '  Pepys'  Diary,'  vol.  i.  p. 
227. 

VOL.  I.  L 


iir 


146 


SURVIVAL   IN  CULTURE. 


the  amount  of  actual  con'espondence  between  omen  and 
event  necessary  to  establish  these  rules :  the  illogical  people 
who  were  (and  still  are)  able  to  discover  a  connexion  between 
the  ticking  of  the  '  death-watch '  beetle  and  an  ensuing 
death  in  the  house,  no  doubt  found  it  efjually  easy  to  give  a 
prophetic  interpretation  to  any  other  mysterious  knocks.^ 
There  is  a  story,  dated  1534,  of  a  ghost  that  answered 
questions  by  knocking  in  the  Catholic  Church  of  Orleans, 
and  demanded  the  removal  of  the  provost's  Lutheran  wife, 
who  had  been  buried  there ;  but  the  affair  proved  to  be  a 
trick  of  a  Franciscan  friar. -^  The  system  of  working  an 
alphabet  by  counted  raps  is  a  d^  .ice familiar  to  prison-cells, 
where  it  has  long  been  at  once  the  despair  of  gaolers  and  an 
evidence  of  the  diffusion  of  education  even  among  the 
criminal  classes.  Thus  when,  in  1847,  the  celebrated 
rappings  began  to  trouble  the  township  of  Arcadia  in  the 
State  of  New  York,  the  Fox  family  of  Rochester,  founders 
of  the  modern  spiritual  movement,  had  on  the  one  hand 
only  to  revive  the  ancient  prevalent  belief  in  spirit-rappings, 
which  had  almost  fallen  into  the  limbo  of  discredited  super- 
stitions, while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  system  of  communi- 
cation with  the  spirits  was  ready  made  to  their  hand.  The 
system  of  a  rapping-alphabet  remains  in  full  use,  and 
numberless  specimens  of  messages  thus  received  are  in 
print,  possibly  the  longest  being  a  novel,  of  which  I  can 
only  give  the  title, '  Juanita,  Nouvelle  par  une  Chaise.  A 
I'Imprimerie  du  Gouvernement,  Basse  Terre  (Guadeloupe), 
1853.'  In  the  recorded  communications,  names,  dates,  &c. 
are  often  alleged  to  have  been  stated  under  remarkable 
circumstances,  while  the  style  of  thought,  language,  and 
spelling  fits  with  the  intellectual  quality  of  the  medium. 
A  large  proportion  of  the  communications  being  obviously 
false  and  silly,  even  when  the  '  spirit '  has  announced  itself 


»  Brand,  vol.  iii.  pp.  225,  233  ;  Grimm,  pp.  801,  1080,  1141  ;  Wuttke,  pp. 
3S-9,  208  ;  Shortlnnd,  '  Trads.  of  Now  Zealand,'  p.  137  (ominous  ticking 
of  insect,  doubtful  whether  idea  native,  or  introduced  by  foreigners). 

^  Bastian,  'Menscli,'  vol.  ii.  p.  393. 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTTTRE. 


147 


omen  and 
;ical  people 
ion  between 
an  ensuing 
sy  to  give  a 
us  knocks.^ 
it  answered 
of  Orleans, 
theran  wife, 
oved  to  be  a 
working  an 
prison-cells, 
olers  and  an 
L  amonf?  the 
B   celebrated 
cadia  in  the 
ter,  founders 
he  one  hand 
irit-rappings, 
edited  super- 
lof  communi- 
hand.     The 
11  use,  and 
i  are  in 
Lich  I  can 
Chaise.    A 
uadeloupe), 
IS,  dates,  &c. 
remarkable 
guage,  and 
,he  medium. 
g  obviously 
unced  itself 

;  Wuttke,  pp. 
iinou8  ticking 
toreignors). 


in  the  name  of  some  great  statesman,  moralist,  or  philo- 
sopher of  the  past,  the  theory  has  been  adopted  by  spiritual- 
ists that  foolish  or  lying  spirits  are  apt  to  personate  those 
of  higher  degree,  and  give  messages  in  their  names. 

Spii'it-writing  is  of  two  kinds,  according  as  it  is  done 
with  or  without  a  material  instrument.  The  first  kind  is  in 
full  practice  in  China,  where,  like  other  rites  of  divination, 
it  is  probably  ancient.  It  is  called  'descending  of  the 
pencil,'  and  is  especially  used  by  the  literary  classes. 
When  a  Chinese  wishes  to  consult  a  god  in  this  way,  he 
sends  for  a  professional  medium.  Before  the  image  of  the 
god  are  set  candles  and  incense,  and  an  offering  of  tea  or 
mock  money.  In  front  of  this,  on  another  table,  is  placed 
an  oblong  tray  of  dry  sand.  The  writing  instrument  is  a 
V-shaped  wooden  handle,  two  or  three  feet  long,  >vith  a 
wooden  tooth  fixed  at  its  point.  Two  persons  hold  this 
instrument,  each  grasping  one  leg  of  it,  and  the  point 
resting  in  the  sand.  Proper  prayers  and  charms  induce 
the  god  to  manifest  his  presence  by  a  movement  of  the 
point  in  the  sand,  and  thus  the  response  is  written,  and 
there  only  remains  the  somewhat  difficult  and  doubtful  task 
of  deciphering  it.  To  what  state  of  opinion  the  rite 
belongs  may  be  judged  from  this  :  when  the  sacred  apricot- 
tree  is  to  be  robbed  of  a  branch  to  make  the  spirit-pen,  an 
apologetic  inscription  is  scratched  upon  the  trunk.^  Not- 
withstanding theological  differences  between  China  and 
England,  the  art  of  spirit-writing  is  much  the  same  in 
the  two  countries.  A  kind  of  '  planchette '  seems  to 
have  been  known  in  Europe  in  the  seventeenth  century.- 
The  instrument,  which  may  now  be  bought  at  the  toy-shops, 
is  a  heart-shaped  board  some  seven  inches  long,  resting  on 
three  supports,  of  which  the  two  at  the  wide  end  are  castors, 
and  the  third  at  the  pointed  end  is  a  pencil  thrust  through 


'  Doolittle,  '  Chinese,'  vol.  ii.  p.  112  ;  Bastian,  '  Oestl.  Asien,'  vol.  iii.  p. 
252  ;  'Psychologii','  p.  150. 

'^  Toehla,  'Aurifontina  Chymica,'  cited  by  K.  R.  H.  Mackenzie,  in 
'  Spiritualist,'  Mar.  15,  1670. 

L  2 


148 


SURVIVAL   IN   CULTURE. 


It 


iii::.  ■■■ 


a  holo  in  tho  board.  Tho  instrumont  is  placed  on  a  sheet 
of  paper,  and  worked  by  two  persons  laying  their  fingers 
lightly  on  it,  and  waiting  till,  without  conscious  otibrt  of  tho 
operators,  it  moves  and  writes  answers  to  questions.  It  is 
not  everybody  who  has  tho  faculty  of  spirit-writing,  but  a 
powerful  medium  will  write  alone.  Such  mediums  some- 
times consider  thomselvcs  acted  on  by  some  power  separate 
from  themselves,  in  fact,  possessed. 

Ecclesiastical  history  commemorates  a  miracle  at  the 
close  of  tho  Nicene  Council.  Two  bishops,  Chrysanthus 
and  Mysonius,  had  died  during  its  sitting,  nnd  the  remain- 
ing crowd  of  Fathers  brought  the  acts,  signed  by  themselves, 
to  tho  tomb,  addressed  the  deceased  bishops  as  if  still  alive, 
and  left  tho  document.  Next  day,  returning,  they  found 
the  two  signatures  added,  to  this  effect: — *Wo,  Chrysan- 
thus and  Mysonius,  consenting  with  all  the  Fathers  in  the 
holy  fii'st  and  oecumenical  Nicene  Synod,  although  translated 
from  the  bod}^  have  also  signed  the  volume  with  our  own 
hands.'  ^  Such  spirit-writing  without  material  instrument 
has  lately  been  renewed  by  the  Baron  do  Guldenstubb^. 
This  writer  confirms  by  new  evidence  the  truth  of  tho 
tradition  of  all  peoples  as  to  souls  of  the  dead  keeping  up 
their  connexion  with  their  mortal  remains,  and  haunting  the 
places  where  they  dwelt '  during  their  terrestrial  incarna- 
tion.' Thus  Francis  I.  manifests  himself  principally  at 
Fontainebleau,  while  Louis  XV.  and  Marie-Antoinette  roam 
about  the  Trianons.  Moreover,  if  pieces  of  blank  paper  be 
set  out  in  suitable  places,  the  spirits,  enveloped  in  their 
ethereal  bodies,  will  concentrate  by  their  force  of  will 
electric  currents  on  the  paper,  and  so  form  written 
characters.  The  Baron  publishes,  in  his  '  Pneumatologie 
Positive,'  a  mass  of  fac-similes  of  spirit-writings  thus 
obtained.  Julius  and  Augustus  Caesar  give  their  names 
near  their  statues  in  the  Louvre ;  Juvenal  produces  a 
ludicrous  attempt  at  a  copy  of  verses  ;  Hdloise  at  Pfere-la- 

'  Niccphor.  Callist.  Ecclesiast.  Hist.  viii.  23  j  Stanley, '  Eastern  Church,' 
p.  17'2. 


on  a  sheet 
heir  fingers 
ofibrt  of  the 
;ions.  It  is 
•iting,  but  a 
liums  some- 
iver  separate 

■acle  at  the 
Chrysanthus 
the  remain- 
'  themselves, 
if  still  alive, 
,  they  found 
^e,  Chrysan- 
ithers  in  the 
gh  translated 
vith  our  own 
)1  instrument 
uldenstubb^. 
ruth  of  the 
keeping  up 
haunting  the 
ial  incarna- 
incipally   at 
loinette  roam 
,nk  paper  be 
led  in  their 
rco  of  will 
trm    written 
eumatologie 
I'itings    thus 
,heir  names 
produces   a 
at  Pfere-la- 

liatorn  Church,' 


SURVIVAL   IN   CULTIIBE. 


149 


Chaiso  Informs  the  world,  in  n»odcm  French,  that  Al)olard 
and  she  are  united  and  happy;  St.  Paul  writes  himself 
(K(i(TTos  aTTofrroAor  (meaning,  we  may  suppo,:*c,  <Aaxi<Mos  airo- 
iTToXuw);  and  Hippokrates  the  physician  (who  spells  himself 
HippokratCa)  attended  M.  de  Guldcnstubbe  at  his  lodgings 
in  Paris,  and  gave  him  a  signature  which  of  itself  cured  a 
sharp  attack  of  rheumatism  in  a  few  minutes.' 

The  miracle  of  rising  and  floating  in  the  air  is  one  fully 
recognized  in  the  literature  of  ancient  India.  The  Buddhist 
saint  of  high  ascetic  rank  attains  the  power  called  '  perfec- 
tion '  (irdhi),  whereby  he  is  able  to  rise  in  the  air,  as  also  to 
overturn  the  eaiih  and  stop  the  sun.  Having  this  power, 
the  saint  exercises  it  by  the  mere  determination  of  his  will, 
his  l)ody  becoming  imponderous,  as  when  a  man  in  the 
common  human  state  determines  to  leap,  and  leaps.  Buddh- 
ist annals  relate  the  performance  of  the  miraculous  suspen- 
sion by  Gautama  himself,  as  well  as  by  other  saints,  as,  for 
example,  his  ancestor  Maha  Sammata,  who  could  thus  seat 
himself  in  the  air  without  visible  support.  Even  without 
this  exalted  faculty,  it  is  considered  possible  to  rise  and 
move  in  the  air  by  an  effort  of  ecstatic  joy  (udwega  priti). 
A  remarkable  mention  of  this  feat,  as  said  to  be  performed 
by  the  Indian  Brahmans,  occurs  in  the  third-century  bio- 
graphy of  Apollonius  of  Tyana ;  these  Brahmans  are 
described  as  going  about  in  the  air  some  two  oibits  from 
the  ground,  not  for  the  sake  of  miracle  (such  amir  ^i  i  they 
despised),  but  for  its  being  more  suitable  to  solar  rites.- 
Foreign  conjurors  were  professing  to  exhibit  this  miracle 
among  the  Greeks  in  the  second  century,  as  witness 
Lucian's  jocular  account  of  the  Hyperborean  conjuror : — 


'  '  Pneuinatologio  Positive  et  ExpOrimontale  ;  La  Roalit<5  des  Esprits  ft 
le  Plienomenc  Mervoilleux  de  lour  £criturt'  Dirccto  demontres,'  par  le 
Baron  L.  do  Guldoiistubbe.     Paris,  1857- 

^  Hardy,  '  Manual  of  Budhism,'  pp.  38,  126,  1.50  ;  *  Eastern  Monachism.' 
pp.  272,  26.5,  382  ;  KOppen,  'Religion  dcs  Buddha,'  vol.  i.  p.  412  ;  Bastian, 
'  Oestl.  Asien,'  vol.  iii.  p.  3'JO  ;  Philostrati  Vita  Apollon.  I'yan.  iii.  15.  See 
the  mention  among  the  Saadhs  of  India  (17th  century),  in  Trant.  in 
'Missionary  Register,'  July,  1820,  pp.  294-6. 


150 


SURVIVAL   IN  CULTURE. 


Is' 


i'    ^1 


'  Thou  art  joking,  said  Kleodemos,  but  I  was  once  more  in- 
credulous than  thou  about  such  things,  for  I  thought  nothing 
could  have  persuaded  me  to  believe  them  ;  but  when  I  first 
saw  that  foreign  barbarian  flying — he  was  of  the  Hyperbo- 
reans, he  said — I  believed,  and  was  overcome  in  spite  of  my 
resistance.  For  what  was  I  to  do,  when  I  saw  him  carried 
through  the  air  in  daylight,  and  walking  on  the  water,  and 
passing  leisurely  and  slowly  through  the  fire  ?  What ! 
(said  his  interlocutor),  you  saw  the  Hyperborean  man  flying, 
and  walking  on  the  water  ?  To  be  sure,  said  he,  and  he  had 
on  undressed  leather  brogues  as  they  generally  wear  them ; 
but  what's  the  use  of  talking  of  such  trifles,  considering 
what  other  manifestations  he  showed  us, — sending  loves, 
calling  up  daemons,  raising  the  dead,  and  bringing  in  Hekate 
herself  visibly,  and  drawing  down  the  moon  ?  '  Kleodemos 
then  goes  on  to  relate  how  the  conjuror  first  had  his  four 
minsB  down  for  sacrificial  expenses,  and  then  made  a  clay 
Cupid,  and  sent  it  flying  through  the  air  to  fetch  the  girl 
whom  Glaukias  had  fallen  in  love  with,  and  presently,  lo 
and  behold,  there  she  was  knocking  at  the  door !  The 
interlocutor,  however,  comments  in  a  sceptical  vein  on  the 
narrative.  It  was  scarce  needful,  he  says,  to  have  taken  the 
trouble  to  send  for  the  girl  with  clay,  and  a  magician  from 
the  Hyperboreans,  and  even  the  moon,  considering  that  for 
twenty  drachmas  she  would  have  let  herself  be  taken  to  the 
Hyperboreans  themselves ;  and  she  seems,  moreover,  to  have 
been  affected  in  quite  an  opposite  way  to  spirits,  for  whereas 
these  beings  take  flight  if  they  heai*  the  noise  of  brass  or 
iron,  Chrysis  no  sooner  hears  the  chink  of  silver  anywhere, 
but  she  comes  toward  the  sound.^  Another  early  instance 
of  the  belief  in  miraculous  suspension  is  in  the  life  of 
lamblichus,  the  great  Neo-Platonist  mystic.  His  disciples, 
says  Eunapius,  told  him  they  had  heard  a  report  from  his 
servants,  that  while  in  prayer  to  the  gods  he  had  been  lifted 
more  than  ten  cubits  from  the  ground,  his  body  and  clothes 
changing  to  a  beautiful  golden  colour,  but  after  he  ceased 
'  Lucian.  Philopseudes,  13. 


SUEVIVAL   IN  CULTURE. 


151 


le  more  in- 
;ht  nothing 
^hen  I  first 
}  Hyperbo- 
jpite  of  my 
lim  carried 
water,  and 
}?     What! 
man  flying, 
and  he  had 
jvear  them ; 
Lionsidering 
3ing  loves, 
r  in  Hekate 
Kleodemos 
id  his  four 
ade  a  clay 
bch  the  girl 
resently,  lo 
oor !     The 
ein  on  the 
taken  the 
:ician  from 
ig  that  for 
ken  to  the 
er,  to  have 
r  whereas 
f  brass  or 
,nywhere, 
instance 
e   life   of 
disciples, 
from  his 
een  lifted 
d  clothes 
ceased 


from  prayer  his  body  became  as  before,  and  then  he  came 
down  to  the  ground  and  returned  to  the  society  of  his 
followers.  They  entreated  him  therefore,  '  Why,  O  most 
divine  teacher,  why  dost  thou  do  such  things  by  thyself,  and 
not  let  us  partake  of  the  more  perfect  wisdom  ? '  Then 
lamblichus,  though  not  given  to  laughter,  laughed  at  this 
story,  and  said  to  them,  '  It  was  no  fool  who  tricked  you 
thus,  but  the  thing  is  not  true.'  ^ 

After  a  while,  the  prodigy  which  the  Platonist  disclaimed, 
became  a  usual  attribute  of  Christian  saints.  Thus  St. 
Richard,  then  chancellor  to  St.  Edmund,  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  one  day  softly  opening  the  chapel  door,  to  see 
why  the  archbishop  did  not  come  to  dinner,  saw  him  raised 
high  in  the  air,  with  his  knees  bent  and  his  arms  stretched 
out ;  falling  gently  to  the  ground,  and  seeing  the  chancellor, 
he  complained  that  he  had  hindered  him  of  great  spiritual 
delight  and  comfort.  So  St.  Philip  Neri  used  to  be  some- 
times seen  raised  several  yards  from  the  ground  during  his 
rapturous  devotions,  with  a  bright  light  shining  from  his 
countenance.  St.  Ignatius  Loyola  is  declaimed  to  have  been 
raised  about  two  feet  under  the  same  circumstances,  and 
similar  legends  of  devout  ascetics  being  not  only  metaphori- 
cally but  materially  '  raised  above  the  earth '  are  told  in  the 
lives  of  St.  Dominic,  St.  Dunstan,  St.  Theresa,  and  other 
less  known  saints.  In  the  last  century,  Dom  Calmet  speaks 
of  knowing  a  good  monk  who  rises  sometimes  from  the 
ground  and  remains  involuntarily  suspended,  especially  on 
seeing  some  devotional  image  or  hearing  some  devout 
prayer,  and  also  a  nun  who  has  often  seen  herself  raised  in 
spite  of  herself  to  a  certain  distance  from  the  earth.  Un- 
fortunately the  great  commentator  does  not  specify  any 
witnesses  as  having  seen  the  monk  and  nun  rise  in  the  air. 
If  they  only  thought  themselves  thus  elevated,  their  stories 
can  only  rank  with  that  of  the  young  man  mentioned  by  De 
Maistre,  who  so  often  seemed  to  himself  to  float  in  the  air, 
that  he  came  to  suspect  thr.t  gravitation  might  not  be  natural 

'  Eun.npius  in  Iambi. 


ill 

*; 
t 


1'^ 


.!  Ill 


152 


SUBVIVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


'i;l 


It'       •im 


to  man.^  The  hallucination  of  rising  and  floating  in  the  air 
is  extremely  common,  and  ascetics  of  all  religions  are  espe- 
cially liable  to  it. 

Among  modern  accounts  of  diabolic  possession,  also,  the 
rising  in  the  air  is  described  as  taking  place  not  subjectively 
but  objectively.  In  1657,  Kichard  Jones,  a  sprightly  lad  of 
twelve  years  old,  living  at  Shepton  Mallet,  was  bewitched  by 
one  Jane  Brooks  ;  he  was  seen  to  rise  in  the  air  and  pass 
over  a  garden  wall  some  thirty  yards,  and  at  other  times 
was  found  in  a  room  with  his  hands  flat  against  a  beam  at 
the  top  of  the  room,  and  his  body  two  or  three  feet  from  the 
ground,  nine  people  at  a  time  seeing  him  in  this  latter 
position.  Jane  Brooks  was  accordingly  condemned  and 
executed  at  Chard  Assizes  in  March,  1658.  Kichard,  the 
Surrey  demoniac  of  1689,  was  hoisted  up  in  the  air  and  let 
down  by  Satan ;  at  the  beginning  of  his  fits  he  was,  as  it 
were,  blown  or  snatched  or  borne  up  suddenly  from  his 
chair,  as  if  he  would  have  flown  away,  but  that  those  who 
held  him  hung  to  his  arms  and  legs  and  clung  about  him. 
One  account  (not  the  official  medical  one)  of  the  demoniacal 
possessions  at  Morzine  in  Savoy,  in  1864,  relates  that  a 
patient  was  held  suspended  in  the  air  by  an  invisible  force 
during  some  seconds  or  minutes  above  the  cemetery,  in 
the  presence  of  the  archbishop.'^  Modern  spiritualists 
claim  this  power  as  possessed  by  certain  distinguished 
living  mediums,  who,  indeed,  profess  to  rival  in  sober  fact 
the  aerostatic  miracles  of  Buddhist  and  Catholic  legend. 
The  force  employed  is  of  course  considered  to  be  that  of 
the  spirits. 

The  performances  of  tied  mediums  have  been  specially  re- 
presented in  England  by  the  Davenport  Brothers,  who  '  are 
generally  recognized  by  Spiritualists  as  genuine  media,  and 

'  Alban  Butlor,  '  Lives  of  the  Saints,'  vol.  i.  p.  674  ;  Calmet,  '  Diss,  sur 
les  Apparitions,  &c.,'  chap.  xxi.  ;  Do  Maistre,  '  Soirees  de  St.  Petersbourg,' 
vol.  ii.  pp.  15*,  175.  See  also  Bastian,  'Menseh,'  vol.  ii.  p.  578  ;  '  Psycho- 
logie,'  p.  l.'iit. 

'  Glanvil,  'Saducismus  Triumphatus,' part  ii.  ;  Bastian,  '  Psychologie,* 
p.  161. 


g  in  the  air 
IS  are  espe- 


n,  also,  the 

lubjectively 

ghtly  lad  of 

jwitched  by 

ir  and  pass 

other  times 

i  a  beam  at 

let  from  the 

this  latter 

emned  and 

lichard,  the 

I  air  and  let 

le  was,  as  it 

ly  from  his 

t  those  who 

about  him. 

demoniacal 

ates  that  a 

isible  force 

jmetery,  in 

ipiritualists 

Btinguished 

1  sober  fact 

)lic  legend. 

be  that  of 

)ecially  re- 
L  who  '  are 
(media,  and 

at,  '  Diss,  sur 
|Petersbourg,' 
78;  '  Psyeho- 

IPsychologie,' 


SURVIVATi   IN   CULTURE. 


153 


attribute  the  reverse  opinion  so  deeply  rooted  in  the  public 
mind,  to  the  untruthfulness  of  the  London  and  many  other 
newspapers.'  The  performers  were  bound  fast  and  shut  by 
themselves  in  a  dark  cabinet,  with  musical  instruments, 
whence  not  only  musical  sounds  proceeded,  but  the  coats  of 
the  mediums  were  taken  off  and  replaced  ;  yet  on  inspection 
their  bodies  were  discovered  still  bound.  The  spirits  would 
also  release  the  bound  mediums  from  their  cords,  however 
carefully  tied  about  them.^  Now  the  idea  of  supernatural 
unbinding  is  very  ancient,  vouched  for  as  it  is  by  no  less  a 
personage  than  the  crafty  Odysseus  himself,  in  his  adventure 
on  board  the  ship  of  the  Thesprotians : 

'  Me  on  the  well-benched  vessel,  strongly  bound. 
They  leave,  and  ..Aiaich  their  meal  upon  the  beach. 
But  to  my  help  the  gods  themselves  unwound 
My  cords  with  ease,  though  firmly  twisted  round.' 

In  early  English  chronicle,  we  find  it  in  a  story  told  by  the 
Venerable  Bede.  A  certain  Imma  was  found  all  but  dead 
on  the  field  of  battle,  and  taken  prisoner,  but  when  he  began 
to  recover  and  was  put  in  bonds  to  prevent  his  escaping,  no 
sooner  did  his  binders  leave  him  but  he  was  loose  again. 
The  earl  who  owned  him  enquired  whether  he  had  about 
him  such  'loosening  letters'  (litcras  solutorias)  as  tales 
were  told  of ;  the  man  replied  that  he  knew  nought  of  such 
arts  ;  yet  when  his  owner  sold  him  to  another  master,  there 
was  still  no  binding  him.  The  received  explanation  of  this 
strange  power  was  emphatically  a  spiritual  one.  His  brother 
had  sought  for  his  dead  body,  and  finding  another  like  him, 
buried  it  and  proceeded  to  say  masses  for  his  brother's  soul, 
by  the  celebration  whereof  it  came  to  pass  that  no  one 
could  fasten  him,  for  he  was  out  of  bonds  again  directly. 
So  they  sent  him  home  to  Kent,  whence  he  duly  returned 
his  ransom,  and  his  story,  it  is  related,  stimulated  many  to 
devotion,  who  understood  by  it  how  salutary  are  masses  to 

• 

'  '  Spiritualist,'  Feb.  15,  1870.    Orrln  Abbott,  '  The  Davenport  Brothers,' 
New  York,  lb64. 


«i| 


154 


SURVIVAL   IN   CULTURE. 


I     ■')■! 


r. 


the  redemption  both  of  soul  and  body.  Again,  there  pre- 
vailed in  Scotland  up  to  the  last  century  this  notion :  when 
the  lunatics  who  had  been  brought  to  St.  Fillan's  Pool  to  be 
bathed,  were  laid  bound  in  the  neighbouring  church  next 
night,  if  they  were  found  loose  in  the  morning  their  re- 
covery was  expected,  but  if  at  dawn  they  were  still  bound, 
their  cure  was  doubtful. 

The  untying  trick  performed  among  savages  is  so  similar 
to  that  of  our  mountebanks,  that  when  we  find  the  North 
American  Indian  jugglers  doing  both  this  and  the  familiar 
trick  of  breathing  fire,  we  are  at  a  loss  to  judge  whether 
they  inherited  these  two  feats  from  their  savage  ancestors, 
or  borrowed  them  from  the  white  men.  The  point  is  not, 
however,  the  mere  performance  of  the  untying  trick,  but  its 
being  attributed  to  the  help  of  spiritual  beings.  This 
notfon  is  thoroughly  at  home  in  savage  culture.  It  comes 
out  well  in  the  Esquimaux'  accounts  which  date  from  early 
in  the  18th  century.  Cranz  thus  describes  the  Greenland 
angekok  setting  out  on  his  mystic  journey  to  heaven  and 
hell.  When  he  has  drummed  awhile  and  made  all  sorts  of 
wondrous  contortions,  he  is  himself  bound  with  a  thong  by 
one  of  his  pupils,  his  head  between  his  legs,  and  his  hands 
behind  his  back.  All  the  lamps  in  the  house  are  put  out, 
and  the  windows  darkened,  for  no  one  must  see  him  hold 
intercourse  with  his  spirit,  no  one  must  move  or  even  scratch 
his  head,  that  fhe  spirit  may  not  be  interfered  with — or 
rather,  says  the  missionary,  that  no  one  may  catch  him  at 
his  trickery,  for  there  is  no  going  up  to  heaven  in  broad 
daylight.  At  last,  after  strange  noises  have  been  heard, 
and  a  visit  has  been  received^^or  paid  to  the  torngak  or 
spirit,  the  magician  reappears  unbound,  but  pale  and 
excited,  and  gives  an  account  of  his  adventures.  Castren's 
account  of  the  similar  proceedings  of  the  Siberian  shamans 
is  as  follows :  '  They  are  practised '  he  says,  '  in  all  sorts 
of  conjuring-tricks,  by  which  they  know  how  to  dazzle  the 
simple  crowd,  and  inspire  gr(  ater  trust  in  themselves.  One 
of  the  most  usualjuggleriesof  the  shamans  in  the  Govern- 


1 


SURVIVAL   IN   CULTURE. 


155 


ihere  pre- 
on:  when 
Pool  to  be 
urch  next 
their  re- 
ill  bound, 

so  similar 
the  North 
e  familiar 
;e  whether 
ancestors, 
int  is  not, 
Lck,  but  its 
gs.      This 
It  comes 
from  early 
Greenland 
eaven  and 
II  sorts  of 
thong  by 
lis  hands 
put  out, 
lim  hold 
en  scratch 
with — or 
ch  him  at 
in  broad 
icn  heard, 
)rngak  or 
pale   and 
Castren's 
shamans 
all  sorts 
iazzle  the 
es.     One 
Govern- 


ment of  Tomsk  consists  of  the  following  hocus-pocus,  a 
wonder  to  the  Russians  as  well  as  to  the  Samoieds.  The 
shaman  sits  down  on  the  wrong  side  of  a  dry  reindeer-hide 
spread  in  the  middle  of  the  floor.  There  he  lets  himself  be 
bound  hand  and  foot  by  the  assistants.  The  shutters  are 
closed,  and  the  shaman  begins  to  invoke  his  ministering 
spirits.  All  at  once  there  arises  a  mysterious  ghostliness  in 
the  dark  space.  Voices  are  heard  from  different  parts, 
both  within  and  without  the  yurt,  while  on  the  dry  reindeer 
skin  there  is  a  rattling  and  drumming  in  regular  time. 
Bears  gro  vl,  snakes  hiss,  and  squirrels  leap  about  in  the 
lOom.  At  last  this  uncanny  work  ceases,  and  the  audience 
impatiently  await  the  result  of  the  game.  A  few  moments 
pass  in  this  expectation,  and  behold,  the  shaman  walks  in 
free  and  unbound  from  outside.  No  one  doubts  that  it  was 
the  spirits  who  were  drumming,  growling,  and  hissing,  who 
released  the  shaman  from  his  bonds,  and  who  carried  him 
by  secret  ways  out  of  the  yurt.'  ^ 

On  the  whole,  the  ethnography  of  spiritualism  bears  on 
practical  opinion  somewhat  in  this  manner.  Beside  the 
question  of  the  absolute  truth  or  falsity  of  the  alleged 
possessions,  manes-oracles,  doubles,  brain-waves,  furniture 
movings,  and  floatings  in  the  air,  there  remains  the  history 
of  spiritualistic  belief  as  a  matter  of  opinion.  Hereby 
it  appears  that  the  received  spiritualistic  theory  of  the 
alleged  phenomena  belongs  to  the  philosophy  of  savjiis;i>s. 
As  to  such  matters  as  apparitions  or  possessions  this  is 
obvious,  and  it  holds  in  more  extreme  cases.  Suppose  a 
wild  North  American  Indian  looking  on  at  a  spirit-stance 
in  London.  As  to  the  presence  '~>f  disembodied  spirits, 
manifesting  themselves  by  raps,  noises,  voices,  £  id   other 


1  Homer.  Odyss.  xiv.  345  tWorsloy's  Trans.) ;  Beda,  '  Historia  Eeclesias- 
tica,'  iv.  ?'^  ;  Grimm,  '  D.  M.,'  p.  1180  (an  old  German  loosing-charm  is  given 
from  iho  Merseburg  MS.);  J.  Y.  Simpson,  in  '  Proc.  Ant.  Soc.  Scotland,' 
vol.  iv. ;  Keating,  '  Long's  Exp.  to  St.  Peter's  River,'  vol.  ii.  p.  159  ;  Egede, 
♦Greenland,'  p.  180  ;  Cranz,  'GrOnland,'  p.  269  ;  Castren,  'Reiseberichte,' 
1845-lt,  p.  178. 


I 

Ik. 
I 


•!5P 


SUnVIVAL   IN   CULTURE. 


!         '^S, 


ii'iii 


1  :i     'i 


i  iijivlcal  actions,  the  savage  would  be  perfectly  at  home  in 
the  proceedings,  for  such  things  are  part  and  parcel  of  his 
recognized  system  cT nature.  The  part  of  the  <uiair  ically 
strange  to  him  woul  1  be  the  introduction  of  fliich  vx'jS  as* 
spoiling  and  \vviting,  which  do  belong  to  (.■  differoiit  statf  of 
civilization  from  his.  The  is8';e  raised  ,'*y  the  comparison 
of  savage,  barbaric,  and  civilized  spirituaii.im,  is  tiiis :  Do 
the  Red  Indian  mediciua-iaan,  the  Tatar  necromancer,  the 
Highland  ghost-seer,  and  the  Boston  medium,  share  the 
possession  of  belief  and  knowledge  of  the  iiigli^^st  truth  and 
import,  which,  novertheless,  llie  gi'eat  intelloct v;al  movcmer- 
of  tho  last  two  C'uturie.s  has  simplj'  thro^\  n  ar^ide  as  v.orth- 
It'Sis  ?  is  wbat  W' '  are  habit  nally  boasting  of  and  calling  new 
e.nlight  /  inon).  'hen,  iivfuctadecay  of  knowledge'?  If  so,  this 
i?  a  truly  rfunaikalile  case  of  degeneration,  and  the  savages 
whom  some  'jtbnographers  look  on  as  degeu»u*ate  from  a 
birjhor  civilization,  may  turn  on  their  accusers  and  charge 
theni  with  having  fallen"  from  the  high  level  of  savage 
knowledge. 

Throughout  the  whole  of  this  varied  investigation,  whether 
of  the  dwindling  survival  of  old  culture,  or  of  its  bursting 
forth  afresh  in  active  revival,  it  may  perhaps  be  complained 
that  its  illustrations  should  be  chosen  so  much  among  things 
worn  out,  worthless,  frivolous,  or  even  bad  with  downright 
harmful  folly.  It  is  in  fact  so,  and  I  have  taken  up  this 
course  of  argument  with  full  knowledge  and  intent.  For, 
indeed,  we  have  in  such  enquiries  continual  reason  to  be 
thankful  for  fools.  It  is  quite  wonderful,  even  if  we  hardly 
go  below  the  surface  of  the  subject,  to  see  how  large  a  share 
stupidity  and  unpractical  conservatism  and  dogged  supersti- 
tion have  had  in  preserving  for  us  traces  of  the  history  of 
our  race,  which  practical  utilitarianism  would  have  remorse- 
lessly bwept  away.  The  savage  is  firmly,  obstinately  con- 
servative. Nomanappealswithmoreunhesitatin.rrc  nldence 
to  the  great  precedent-makers  of  the  past ;  th.  'iom  of 
his  ancestors  can  control  against  the  most  obvi  v  vidence 
his  own  opinio  > .  and  actions.     We  listen   '.    -      ity  to  the 


E 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTUEE. 


157 


b  hnrno  in 
eel  of  his 
iair  i'oaily 
ich  -M'-zS  as 
r;t  staii-  of 
omparison 
I  this :  Do 
ancer,  the 

share  th^ 

truth  and 

movcnier 

as  v,-')rth- 

Eiliing  new 

If so, this 
lie  savages 
,te  from  a 
tnd  charge 
of  savage 

whether 

bursting 
)mplained 
incj  things 
ownright 
n  up  this 
nt.  For, 
on  to  be 

e  hardly 
;e  a  share 

supersti- 
listory  of 

remorse- 
tely  con- 

n Idence 
•'iom  of 
^idence 

ty  to  the 


rude  Indian  as  he  maintains  against  civilized  science  and 
experience  the  authority  of  his  rude  forefathers.  We  smile 
at  the  Chinese  appealing  against  modern  innovation  to  the 
golden  precepts  of  Confucius,  who  in  his  time  looked  back 
with  the  same  prostrate  reverence  to  sages  still  more 
ancient,  counselling  his  disciples  to  follow  the  seasons  of 
Hea,  to  ride  in  the  carriage  of  Yin,  to  wear  the  ceremonial 
cap  of  Chow. 

The  nobler  tendency  of  advancing  culture,  and  above  all 
of  scientific  culture,  is  to  honour  the  dead  without  grovelling 
before  them,  to  profit  by  the  past  without  sacrificing  the 
present  to  it.  Yet  even  the  modern  civilized  world  has  but 
half  learnt  this  lesson,  and  an  unprejudiced  survey  may  lead 
us  to  judge  how  many  of  our  ideas  and  customs  exist  rather 
by  being  old  than  by  being  good.  Now  in  dealing  with 
hurtful  superstitions,  the  proof  that  they  are  things  which 
it  is  the  tendency  of  savagery  to  produce,  and  of  higher 
culture  to  destroy,  is  accepted  as  a  fair  controversial 
ai'gument.  The  mere  historical  position  of  a  belief  or 
custom  may  raise  a  presumption  as  to  its  origin  which 
becomes  a  presumption  as  to  its  authenticity.  Dr.  Middle- 
ton's  celebrated  Letter  from  Kome  shows  cases  in  point. 
He  mentions  the  image  of  Diana  at  Ephesus  which  fell 
from  the  sky,  thereby  damaging  the  pretensions  of  the 
Calabrian  image  of  St.  Dominic,  which,  according  to  pious 
tradition,  was  likewise  brought  down  from  heaven.  He 
notices  that  as  the  blood  of  St.  Januarius  now  melts  miracu- 
lously without  heat,  so  ages  ago  the  priests  of  Gnatia  ti'ied 
to  persuade  Horace,  on  his  road  to  Brundusium,  that  the 
frankincense  in  their  temple  had  the  habit  of  melting  in 
like  manner  : 

'     .  .  (lehinc  Gnatia  lyinphis 
Ti.'*i-i  p.i.i!)ucta  '.l«dlt  risusque  jocosque  ; 
Duin  flamma  sin  >  thura  liquescere  limine  sacro, 
Persuadere  cupit :  >  leclat  Judseus  Apella; 
Non  ego,^ 

•  Conyers  Middletvn,  '  A  Letter  from  Rome,'  1729  ;  Hor.  Sat.  I.  v.  98. 


■fi 


pi 

m 

■i- 


158 


SURVIVAL  IN  CULTURE. 


,f>> 


m 


'm 


'  ill! 


'  i 
Si' 

i 


81 


!    • 


liiii 


Thus  ethnographers,  not  without  a  certain  grim  satisfaction, 
may  at  times  find  means  to  make  stupid  and  evil  supersti- 
tion)? uear  writness  against  themselves. 

Moreover,  in  working  to  gain  an  insight  into  the  general 
laws  of  intellectual  movement,  there  is  practical  gain  in 
being  able  to  study  them  rather  among  antiquarian  relics  of 
no  intense  modern  interest,  than  among  those  seething 
problems  of  the  day  on  which  action  has  to  be  taken  amid 
ferment  and  sharp  strife.  Should  some  moralist  or  politi- 
cian speak  contemptuously  of  the  vanity  of  studying 
matters  without  practical  moment,  it  will  generally  be 
found  that  his  own  mode  of  treatment  will  consist  in 
partizan  diatribes  on  the  questions  of  the  (  ly,  a  proceeding 
practical  enough,  especially  in  confirming  those  who  agree 
with  him  abeady,  but  the  extreme  opposite  to  the  scientific 
way  of  eliciting  truth.  The  ethnographer's  couree,  again, 
should  be  like  that  of  the  anatomist  who  carries  on  his 
studies  if  possible  rather  on  dead  than  on  living  subjects ; 
vivisection  is  nervo  as  work,  and  the  humane  investigator 
hates  inflicting  needless  pain.  Thus  when  the  student  of 
culture  occupies  himself  in  viewing  the  bearings  of  exploded 
conti'oversies,  or  in  unravelling  the  history  of  long-super- 
seded inventions,  he  is  gladly  seeking  his  e  'dence  rather 
in  such  dead  old  history,  than  in  the  discussions  where  he 
and  those  he  lives  among  are  alive  with  intense  par!  j  feel- 
ing, and  where  his  judgment  is  biassed  by  the  pressure  of 
personal  sympathy,  and  even  it  may  be  of  personal  gain  or 
loss.  So,  from  things  which  perhaps  never  were  of  high 
importance,  things  which  have  fallen  out  of  popular  signi- 
ficance, or  even  out  of  popular  memory,  he  -ries  to  elicit 
general  laws  of  culture,  often  to  be  thus  more  easily  and 
fully  gained  than  in  the  arena  of  modern  philosophy  and 
politics. 

But  the  opinions  drawn  from  old  or  worn-out  culture  are 
not  to  be  left  lying  where  they  were  shaped.  It  is  no  more 
reasonable  to  suppose  the  laws  of  mind  differently  con- 
stituted in  Australia  and  in  England,  in  the  time  of  the 


latisfaction, 
il  Bupersti- 

the  general 

:al  gain  in 

an  relics  of 

le   seething 

aken  amid 

t  or  politi- 

F   studying 

jnerally  be 

consist   in 

proceeding 

who  agree 

le  scientific 

irse,  again, 

ries  on  his 

5  subjects ; 

ivestigator 

student  of 

f  exploded 

ng-super- 

ice  rather 

where  he 

•any  feel- 

(ressure  of 

1  gain  or 

|e  of  high 

lar  signi- 

to  elicit 

Lsily  and 

•phy  and 


^Iture  are 

no  more 

[tly  cou- 

le  of  the 


SURVIVAL   IN  CULTURE. 


159 


cave-dwellers  and  in  the  time  of  the  builders  of  sheet-iron 
houses,  than  to  suppose  that  the  laws  of  chemical  combina- 
tion were  of  one  sort  in  the  time  of  the  coal-measures,  and 
are  of  another  now.  The  thing  that  has  been  will  be ;  and 
we  are  to  study  savages  and  old  nations  to  learn  the  laws 
that  under  new  circumstances  are  working  for  good  or  ill  in 
our  own  development.  If  it  is  needful  to  give  an  instance 
of  the  directness  with  which  antiquity  and  savagery  bear 
upon  our  modern  life,  let  it  be  taken  in  the  facts  just 
brought  forward  on  the  relation  of  ancient  sorcery  to  the 
belief  in  witchcraft  which  was  not  long  since  one  of  the 
gravest  facts  of  European  history,  and  of  savage  spiritualism 
to  beliefs  which  so  deeply  aftect  our  civilization  now.  No 
one  who  can  see  in  these  cases,  and  in  many  others  to  be 
brought  before  him  in  these  volumes,  how  direct  and  close 
the  connexion  may  be  between  modern  culture  and  the 
condition  of  the  rudest  savage,  will  be  prone  to  accuse 
students  who  spend  their  labour  on  even  the  lowest  and 
most  trifling  facts  of  ethnogi'aphy,  of  wasting  their  hours  in 
the  satisfaction  of  a  frivolous  curiosity. 


v.; 


I 


m 


m 


CHAPTFr  ;. 

EMOTIONAL   AND  IMITATIVK   LANOUAOE. 

Element  of  directly  oxprossivo  Sound  in  Langiingo— Tost  by  indopondont 
correspondence  in  distinct  languages— Constituent  procosses  of  Lan- 
guage—Gesture— Expression  of  feature,  &c. — Emotional  Tone — Articu- 
latesounds,  vowels  determined  by  musical  qualityand  pitch,  consonants 
— Emphasis  and  Accent — Phrase-melody,  Recitative — Sound-Words 
— Interjections — Calls  to  Animals — Emotional  Cries — Sense-Words 
formed  from  Interjections— Affirmative  and  Negative  particles,  &c. 

In  carrying  on  the  enquiry  into  the  development  of 
culture,  evidence  of  some  weight  is  to  b'^  gained  ft,  .v  an 
examination  of  Language.  Comparing  the  grammars  and 
dictionaries  of  races  at  various  grades  of  civilization,  it 
appears  that,  in  the  great  art  of  speech,  the  educated  man 
at  this  day  substantially  uses  the  method  of  the  savage, 
only  expanded  and  improved  in  the  working  out  of  details. 
It  is  true  that  the  laaguages  of  the  Tasmanian  and  the 
Chinese,  of  the  Grcenlander  an^l  the  Greek,  differ  variously 
in  structure;  hut  thi  is  a  set  udary  ditterence,  underlaid 
by  a  primary  similarity  in  method,  nami  ly,  the  expression 
of  ideas  by  articulate  sounds  habitually  nlloted  to  them. 
Now  all  langua^  JH  are  found  oi  luspecfcion  to  contain  some 
articulate  sounds  of  a  directly  natural  and  direco^y  intolli- 
gible  kind.  Tiiose  are  sounds  oi  iterjoctional  or  imitative 
character,  which  have  theii  aniii  ^  not  by  inheritance  from 
parents  or  adoption  from  "  .gn<  s, but  by  being  taken  up 
directly  from  the  world  of  iound  into  the  world  of  sense. 
Like  pantomimic  gestures,  they  are  capable  of  conveying 
their  meaning  of  themselves,  without  reference  to  the  pai'ti- 


^^■ili,: 


ET    JTIONAL   AND   IMITATIVK   LANQUAaB. 


161 


'  indoppndcnt 
cesses  of  Lan- 
Tono — Avticu- 
ch,  consonants 
-Sound-Words 
-Sense-Words 
irticles,  &c. 

ilopment  of 
led  f),  .L  an 
mmars  and 
ilization,  it 
icatod  man 
ilie  savage, 
of  details, 
and   the 
variously 
,  underlaid 
expression 
to  them, 
tain  some 
ly  intf'lli- 
imitative 
auce  from 
taken  up 
of  sense. 
jonveying 
Ithepai'ti- 


cular  language  they  are  used  in  connexion  with.  From  the 
obBervation  of  these,  there  have  arisen  speculations  as  to 
the  origin  of  language,  treating  such  expressive  sounds  as 
the  fundamental  constituents  of  language  in  general,  and 
consid*  ring  those  of  them  which  are  still  plainly  recognizable 
as  having  remained  more  or  less  in  their  original  state,  long 
courses  of  adaptation  and  variation  having  produced  from 
such  the  great  mass  of  words  in  all  languages,  in  which  no 
connexion  between  idea  and  sound  can  any  longer  be 
certainly  made  out.  Thus  grew  up  doctrines  of  a  '  natural ' 
origin  of  language,  which,  dating  from  classic  times,  were 
developed  in  the  eighteenth  c  tury  into  a  system  by  that 
powerful  thinker,  the  President  Charles  de  Brosses,  and  in 
our  own  time  are  being  expanded  and  solidified  by  a  school 
of  philologors,  among  whom  Mr.  Hensleigh  Wedgwood  is 
the  most  prominent.^  These  theories  have  no  doubt  been 
incautiou.sly  and  fancifully  worked.  No  wonder  that 
students  who  found  in  nature  real  and  direct  sources  of 
irticulate  s  '  cch,  in  interjectional  sounds  like  ah!  ugh! 
n  !  8h  !  and  in  imitative  sounds  like  purr,  whiz,  tomtom, 
cuckoo,  should  have  thought  that  the  whole  secret  of  lan- 
guu^  ;  lay  within  their  grasp,  and  that  they  had  only  to  fit 
the  keys  tMis  found  into  one  hole  after  another  to  open 
every  lock  When  a  philosopher  has  a  truth  in  his  hands, 
he  is  apt  to  stretch  it  farther  than  it  will  bear.  The  magic 
umbrella  must  spread  and  spread  till  it  becomes  a  tent  wide 
enough  to  fihelter  the  king's  army.  But  it  must  be  born<i 
in  mind  that  what  criticism  touches  in  these  opinions  is 
their  exaggeration,  not  their  reality.  That  interjections 
and  imitative  words  are  really  taken  up  to  some  extent,  be 
it  small  or  large,  into  the  very  body  and  structure  of  lan- 
guage, no  one  denies.  Such  a  denial,  if  any  one  offered  it, 
the  advocates  of  the  disputed  theories  might  dispose  of  in 
the  single  phrase,  that  they  would  neither  be  pooh-poohed 

•  C.  de  Bro38es.  '  Traits  de  la  Formation  M^canique  des  Lnngues,'  &c. 
(Isted.  1765) ;  Wedgwood,  'Origin  of  Language'  (1866)  ;  'Die.  of  English 
Etymology'  (1859,  2nd  ed.  1872) ;  Farrar,  'Chapters on  Language'  (1865). 

VOL.  I.  M 


\ 


«'4 


It; 


168 


KMOTIONAL  AND   IMITATIVE   LANaUAQE. 


nor  hooted  down.  It  may  be  shown  within  tho  limits  of  the 
most  strict  and  sober  argument,  that  tho  theory  of  the 
origin  of  language  in  natural  and  directly  exproHsive  sounds 
does  account  for  a  considerable  fraction  of  the  existing 
copia  verborum,  while  it  raises  a  presumption  that,  could 
we  trace  the  history  of  words  more  fully,  it  would  account 
for  far  more. 

In  here  examining  interjeotional  and  imitative  sounds 
with  their  derivative  words,  as  well  as  certain  other  parts  of 
language  of  a  more  or  less  cognate  character,  I  purpose  to 
bring  forward  as  far  as  possible  new  evidence  derived  from 
the  languages  of  savage  and  barbarous  races.  By  uo  doing 
it  becomes  practicable  to  use  a  check  which  in  great  measure 
stops  the  main  source  of  uncertainty  and  error  in  such 
enquiries,  the  habit  of  etymologizing  words  off-hand  from 
expressive  sounds,  by  the  unaided  and  often  flighty  fancy  of 
a  philologer.  Bj'  simply  enlarging  the  survey  of  language, 
the  province  of  the  imagination  is  brought  within  narrower 
limits.  If  several  languages,  which  cannot  be  classed  as 
distinctly  of  the  same  family,  unite  in  expressing  some 
notion  by  a  particular  sound  which  may  fairly  claim  to  be 
intevjectional  or  imitative,  their  combined  authority  will  go 
far  to  prove  the  claim  a  just  one.  For  if  it  be  objected  that 
such  words  may  have  passed  into  the  different  languages 
from  a  common  source,  of  which  the  trace  is  for  the  most 
part  lost,  this  may  be  answered  by  the  question,  Why  is  there 
not  a  proportionate  agreement  between  the  languages  in 
question  throughout  the  far  larger  mass  of  words  which 
cannot  pretend  to  be  direct  sound-words?  If  several 
languages  have  independently  chosen  like  words  to  express 
like  meanings,  then  we  may  reasonably  suppose  that  we  are 
not  deluding  ourselves  in  thinking  such  words  highly  appro- 
priate to  their  purpose.  They  are  words  which  answer  the 
conditions  of  original  language,  conforming  as  they  do  to 
the  saying  of  Thomas  Aquinas,  that  the  names  of  things 
ought  to  agree  with  their  natures,  '  nomina  debent  naturis 
rerum  congruere.'     Applied  in  such  comparison,  the  Ian- 


EMOTIONAL   AND   IMITATIVE   LANOUAQE. 


163 


mits  of  the 
)ry  of  the 
jive  soundB 
\o  existing 
that,  could 
lid  account 

ive  sounds 
her  parts  of 
purpose  to 
Brived  from 
3y  so  doing 
3at  measure 
•or  in  such 
-hand  from 
lity  fancy  of 
of  language, 
in  narrower 
!  classed  as 
jssing  some 
claim  to  be 
»rity  will  go 
)jected  that 
languages 
•r  the  most 
hy  is  there 
guages  in 
irds  which 
If  several 
to  express 
Ihat  we  are 
;hly  appro- 
answer  the 
ithey  do  to 
of  things 
nt  naturis 
the  lan- 


guages of  the  lower  races  contribute  evidence  of  excellent 
({uality  to  the  problem.  It  will  at  the  same  time  and  by 
the  same  proofs  appear,  that  savages  possess  in  a  high 
degree  the  faculty  of  uttering  their  minds  directly  in 
emotional  tones  and  interjections,  of  going  straight  to 
nature  to  furnish  themselves  with  imitative  sounds,  includ- 
ing reproductions  of  their  own  direct  emotional  utterances, 
as  means  of  expression  of  ideas,  and  of  introducing  into 
their  formal  language  words  so  produced.  They  have 
clearly  thus  far  the  means  and  power  of  producing  language. 
In  so  far  as  the  theories  under  consideration  account  for 
the  original  formation  of  language,  they  countenance  the 
view  that  this  formation  took  place  among  mankind  in  a 
savage  state,  and  even,  for  anything  appearing  to  the  con- 
trary, in  a  still  lower  stage  of  culture  than  has  survived  to 
our  day.^ 

The  first  step  in  such  investigation  is  to  gain  a  clear  idea 
of  the  various  elements  of  which  spoken  language  is  made 
upv  These  may  be  enumerated  as  gesture,  expression  of 
feature,  emotional  tone,  emphasis,  force,  speed,  &c.  of 
utterance,  musical  rhythm  and  intonation,  and  the  forma- 
tion of  the  vowels  and  consonants  which  aie  the  skeleton  of 
articulate  speech. 

In  the  common  intercourse  of  men,  speech  is  habitually 
accompanied  by  gesture,  the  hands,  head,  and  body  aiding 
and  illustrating  the  spoken  phrase.  So  far  as  we  can  judge, 
the  visible  gesture  and  the  audible  word  have  been  thus 
used  in  combination  since  times  of  most  remote  antiquity 

'  Among  the  principal  Bavage  and  barbaric  languages  here  used  for  evi- 
dence, are  aa  follows  : — Africa  :  Galla  (^Tutschek,  Gr.  and  Die. ),  Yoruba 
(Bowon,  6r.  and  Die ),  Zulu  (DOhno,  Die).  Polynesia,  &c.  :  Maori 
(Kendall,  Vocab ,  Williams,  Dic.\  Tonga  (Mariner,  Vocab.),  Fiji  (Hazle- 
wood.  Die),  Melanesia  (Gabelentz,  Molan.  Spr.).  Australia  (Grey,  Moore, 
Schiirmann,  Oldfleld,  Vocabs.).  N.  America  :  Pima,  Yakama,  Clallam, 
Lummi,  Cliinuk,  Mohawk,  Micmac  (Smithson.  Contr.  vol.  iii.},  Chinook 
Jargon  (Gibbs,  Die),  Quiche  (Brasseur,  Gr.  and  Die).  S.  America: 
Tupi  (Diaz,  Die),  Carib  Rochefort,  Vocab.),  Quichua  (Markham,  Or.  and 
Dic.\  Chilian  (IVbres,  Die),  Brazilian  tribes  (Martius,  '  Glossaria  lingu- 
arum  Brasiliensium  ').    Many  details  in  Pott,  '  Doppelung,'  &c. 

M  2 


/■I 

iin,; 

r  f 
i 


I 


*  I 


164 


EMOTIONAL  AND  IMITATIVE  LANGUAGE. 


in  the  history  of  our  race.  It  seems,  however,  that  in  the 
daily  intercourse  of  the  lower  races,  gesture  holds  a  much 
more  important  place  than  we  are  accustomed  to  see  it  fill, 
a  position  even  encroaching  on  that  which  articulate  speech 
holds  among  ourselves.  Mr.  Bonwick  confirms  by  his 
experience  Dr.  Milligan's  account  of  the  Tasmanians  as 
using  '  signs  to  eke  out  the  meaning  of  monosyllabic 
expressions,  and  to  give  force,  precision,  and  character  to 
vocal  sounds.'  Captain  Wilson  remarks  on  the  use  of 
gesticulation  in  modifying  words  in  the  Chinook  Jargon. 
There  is  confirmation  to  Spix  and  Martins'  description 
of  low  Brazilian  tribes  completing  by  sigps  the  meaning  of 
their  scanty  sentences,  thus  making  the  words  *  wood-go ' 
serve  to  say  '  I  will  go  into  the  wood,'  by  pointing  the 
mouth  like  a  snout  in  the  direction  meant.  The  Rev. 
J.  L.  Wilson,  describing  the  Grebo  language  of  West 
Africa,  remarks  that  they  have  personal  pronouns,  but 
seldom  use  them  in  conversation,  leaving  it  to  gesture  to 
determine  whether  a  verb  is  to  be  taken  in  the  first  or 
second  person ;  thus  the  words  '  ni  ne '  will  mean  *  I  do 
it,'  or  '  you  do  it,'  according  to  the  significant  gestures  of 
the  speaker.^  Beside  such  instances,  it  wiU  hereafter  be 
noticed  that  the  lower  races,  in  counting,  habitually  use 
gesture-language  for  a  purpose  to  which  higher  races  apply 
word-language.  To  this  prominent  condition  of  gesture  as 
a  means  of  expression  among  rude  tribes,  and  to  the 
development  of  pantomime  in  public  show  and  private 
intercourse  among  such  peoples  as  the  Neapolitans  of  our 
own  day,  the  most  extreme  contrast  may  be  found  in  Eng- 
land, where,  whether  for  good  or  ill,  suggestive  pantomime  is 
now  reduced  to  so  small  a  compass  in  social  talk,  and  even 
in  public  oratory. 

Changes  of  the  bodily  attitude,  corresponding  in  their 
fine  gradations  with  changes  of  the  feelings,  comprise  condi- 

'  Bonwick,  *  Daily  Life  of  Tasmanians,'  p.  140  ;  Capt.  Wilson,  in  '  Tr. 
Eth.  8oc.,'  vol.  iv.  p.  322,  Ac;  J.  L.  Wilson,  in  'Journ.  Amer.  Oriental 
See.,'  vol.  i.  1849,  No.  4  ;  also  Crnn/.,  '  Grfinland,'  p.  27'J  (cited  below, 
p.  186).    For  other  accounts,  see  '  Early  Hist,  of  Mankind,'  p.  77- 


EMOTIONAL   AND  IMITATIVE   LANGUAGE. 


165 


bhat  in  the 

ds  a  much 

see  it  fill, 

[ate  speech 

as   by   his 

lanians  as 

)nosyllabic 

laracter  to 

ihe   use  of 

)k  Jargon. 

lescription 

meaning  of 

'  wood-go ' 

inting  the 

The    Rev. 

)   of  West 

aouns,  but 

gesture  to 

he  first  or 

ean  'I  do 

restures  of 

reafter  be 

tually  use 

aces  apply 

gesture  as 

id  to  the 

id  private 

ns  of  our 

d.  in  Eng- 

tomime  is 

and  even 

1^  in  their 
ise  condi- 

son,  in  '  Tr. 
er.  Oriental 
ited  below, 


tions  of  the  surface  of  the  body,  postures  of  the  limbs,  and 
also  especially  those  expressive  attitudes  of  the  face  to 
which,  our  attention  ip  particularly  directed  when  we  notice 
one  another.  The  visible  expression  of  the  features  is  a 
symptom  which  displays  the  speaker's  state  of  mind,  his 
feelings  of  pleasure  or  disgust,  of  pride  or  humility,  of  faith 
or  doubt,  and  so  forth.  Not  that  there  is  between  the 
emotion  and  its  bodily  expression  any  originally  intentional 
connexion.  It  is  merely  that  a  certain  action  of  our 
physical  machinery  sho-  s  symptoms  which  we  have  learnt 
by  experience  to  refer  to  a  mental  cause,  as  we  judge  by 
seeing  a  man  sweat  or  limp  that  he  is  hot  or  footsore. 
Blushing  is  caused  by  certain  emotions,  and  among  Euro- 
peans it  is  a  visible  expression  or  symptom  of  them ;  not 
so  among  South  American  Indians,  whose  blushes,  as 
Mr.  David  Forbes  points  out,  may  be  detected  by  the  hand 
or  a  thermometer,  but  being  concealed  by  the  dark  skin 
cannot  serve  as  a  visible  sign  of  feeling.^  By  turning  these 
natural  processes  to  account,  men  contrive  to  a  certain 
extent  to  put  on  particular  physical  expressions,  frowning 
or  smiling  for  instance,  in  order  to  simulate  the  emotions 
which  would  naturally  produce  such  expressions,  or  merely 
to  convey  the  thought  of  such  emotions  to  others.  Now  it 
is  well  known  to  every  one  that  physical  expression  by 
feature,  &c.,  forming  a  part  of  the  universal  gesture-lan- 
guage, thus  serves  as  an  important  adjunct  to  spoken 
language.  It  is  not  so  obvious,  but  on  examination  will 
prove  to  be  true,  that  such  expression  by  feature  itself  acts 
as  a  formative  power  in  vocal  language.  Expression  of 
countenance  has  an  action  beyond  that  of  mere  visible 
gesture.  The  bodily  attitude  brought  on  by  a  particular 
state  of  mind  affects  the  position  of  the  organs  of  speech, 
both  the  internal  larynx,  &c.,  and  the  external  features 
whose  change  can  be  watched  by  the  mere  looker-on.  Even 
though  the  expression  of  the  speaker's  face  may  not  be  seen 
by  the  hearer,  the  effect  of  the  whole  bodily  attitude  of 

•  Forbes,  '  Aymara  Indians,'  in  Journ.  Eth.  Soc.  1870,  vol.  ii.  p.  208. 


'Hfr 


Ifl 


M 

%\ 

mi 


I*!; 


*!l 


166 


EMOTIONAL   AND  IMITATIVE   LANGUAGE. 


which  it  forms  part  is  not  thereby  done  away  with.  For  on 
the  position  thus  taken  by  the  various  organs  concerned  in 
speech,  depends  what  I  have  here  called  '  emotional  tone,' 
whereby  the  voice  carries  direct  expression  of  the  speaker"  s 
feeling.' 

The  ascertaining  of  the  precise  physical  mode  in  which 
certain  attitudes  of  the  internal  and  external  face  come  to 
correspond  to  certain  moods  of  mind,  is  a  physiological 
problem  as  yet  little  understood ;  but  the  fact  that  particular 
expressions  of  face  are  accompanied  by  corresponding  and 
dependent  expressions  of  emotional  tone,  only  requires  an 
observer  or  a  looking-glass  to  prove  it.   The  laugh  made  with 
a  solemn,  contemptuous,  or  sarcastic  face,  is  quite  diflferent 
from  that  which  comes  from  a  joyous  one ;  the  ah !  oh  !  ho ! 
hey !  and  so  on,  change  their  modulations  to  match  the  expres- 
sion of  countenance.    The  effect  of  the  emotional  tone  does 
not  even  require  fitness  in  the  meaning  of  the  spoken  words, 
for  nonsense  or  an  unknown  tongue  may  be  made  to  convey, 
when  spoken  with  expressive  intonation,  the  feelings  which 
are  displayed  upon  the   speaker's  face.     This   expression 
may  even  be  recognized  in  the  dark  by  noticing  the  tone  it 
gives  forth,  while  the  forced  character  given  by  the  attempt 
to  bring  out  a  sound  not  matching  even  the  outward  play 
of  the  features  can  hardly  be  hidden  by  the  most  expert 
ventriloquist,  and  in  such  forcing,  the  sound  perceptibly 
drags  the  face  into   the   attitude   that  fits  with  it.     The 
nature  of  communication  by  emotional  tone  seems  to  me 
to  be  somewhat  on  this  wise.     It  does  not  appear  that 
particular  tones  at  all  belong  directly  and  of  themselves  to 
particular  emotions,  but  that  their  action  depends  on  the 
vocal  organs  of  the  speaker  and  hearer.     Other  animals, 
having  vocal  organs  different  from  man's,  have  accordingly, 
as  we  know,  a  different  code   of  emotional    tones.     An 
alteration  ui  man's  vocal  organs  would  bring  a  correspond- 
ing alteration  in  the  effect  of  tone  in  expressing  feeling; 

'  Compare  Herbert  Spencor,  'Origin  and  Function  of  Music'  in  'Essays' 

(1858). 


i 


EMOTIONAL  AND   IMITATIVE   LANGUAGE. 


167 


h.  For  on 
mcerned  in 
ional  tone,' 
e  speakers 

e  in  which 

ce  come  to 

yeiological 

;  particular 

)nding  and 

equires  an 

made  with 

e  different 

h !  oh  !  ho ! 

the  expres- 

1  tone  does 

ken  words, 

to  convey, 

ings  which 

expression 

the  tone  it 

le  attempt 

ward  play 

3st  expert 

erceptibly 

it.     The 

ms  to  me 

joar  that 

nselves  to 

ds  on  the 

animals, 

ordingly, 

Qes.      An 

i-respond- 

feeling ; 

in  'Essays' 


the  tone  which  to  us  expresses  surprise  or  anger  might 
come  to  express  pleasure,  and  so  forth.  As  it  is,  children 
learn  by  early  experience  that  such  and  such  a  tone  indicates 
such  and  such  an  emotion,  and  this  they  make  out  partly 
by  finding  themselves  uttering  such  tones  when  their  feel- 
ings have  brought  their  faces  to  the  appropriate  attitudes, 
and  partly  by  observing  the  expression  of  voice  in  others. 
At  three  or  four  years  old  they  are  to  be  seen  in  the  act  of 
acquiring  this  knowledge,  turning  round  to  look  at  the 
speaker's  face  and  gesture  to  make  sure  of  the  meaning  of 
the  tone.  But  in  later  years  this  knowledge  becomes  so 
familiar  that  it  is  supposed  to  have  been  intuitive.  Then, 
when  men  talk  together,  the  hearer  receives  from  each 
emotional  tone  an  indication,  a  signal,  of  the  speaker's 
attitude  of  body,  and  through  this  of  his  state  of  mind. 
These  he  can  recognize,  and  even  rer  roduce  in  himself,  as 
the  operator  at  one  tnd  of  a  telegraph  j  wire  can  follow,  by 
noticing  his  needles,  the  action  of  his  colleague  at  the 
other.  In  watching  the  process  which  thus  enables  one 
man  to  take  a  copy  of  another's  emotions  through  their 
physical  effects  on  his  vocal  tone,  we  may  admire  the  perfec- 
tion with  which  a  means  so  simple  answers  an  end  so  com- 
plex, and  apparently  so  remote. 

By  eliminating  from  speech  all  effects  lif  gesture,  of 
expression  of  face,  and  of  emotional  tone,  ve  go  far  toward 
reducing  it  to  that  system  of  conventional  articulate  sounds 
which  the  grammarian  and  the  comparative  philologist 
habitually  consider  as  language.  These  articulate  sounds 
are  capable  of  being  roughly  set  down  in  signs  standing  for 
vowels  and  consonants,  with  the  aid  of  accents  and  other 
significant  marks  ;  and  they  may  then  again  be  read  aloud 
from  these  written  signs,  by  any  one  who  has  learnt  to  give 
its  prope)"  sound  to  each  letter. 

What  vowels  are,  is  a  matter  which  has  been  for  some 
years  well  understood.^    They  are  compound  musical  tones  / 

■  See  Helmholtz,  'Tonempfindungen,' 2nd  ed.  p.  163;  Tyndall,  'Sound,' 
lectui'e  V. ;  Max  Miiller,  'Lectures,'  2nd  serie.-<,  p.  05,  &c. 


m 

^  til 

If!' 


Ilft< 

in 

M I 


III 


168 


EMOTIONAL   AND  IMITATIVE   LANGUAGE. 


such  as,  in  the  vox  humana  stop  of  the  organ,  are  sounded 
by  reeds  (vibrating  tongues)  fitted  to  organ-pipes  of  par- 
ticular construction.     The  manner  of  formation  of  vowels 
by  the  voice  is  shortly  this.     There   are  situated  in   the 
larynx  a  pair  of  vibrating  membranes  called  the  vocal  chords, 
which  may  be  rudely  imitated  by  stretching  a  piece  of  sheet 
india-rubber  over  the  open  end  of  a  tube,  so  as  to  form  two 
half-covers  to  it, '  like  the  parchment  of  a  drum  split  across 
the  middle  • '  when  the  tube  is  blown  througli,  iihe  india- 
rubber  flaps  will  vibrate  as  the  vocal  chords  do  in  the  laivnx, 
and  give  out  a  sound.     In  the  human  voice,  the  musical 
effect  of  the  vibrating  chords  is  increased  by  the  cavity  of 
the  mouth,  which  acts  as  a  resonator  or  sounding-box,  and 
which    also,  by  its    shape  at  any  moment,  modifies  the 
musical  '  quality  '  of  the  sound  produced.     Quality,  which 
is  independent  of  pitch,  depends  on  the  harmonic  overtones 
accompanying  the  fundamental  tone  which  alone  musical 
notation  takes  account  of :  this  quality  makes  the  difference 
between  the  same  note  on  two  instruments,  flute  and  piano 
for  instance,  while  some  instruments,  as  the  violin,  can  give 
to  one  note  a  wide  variation  of  quality.     To  such  quality 
the  formatioxi  of  vowels  is  due.    This  is  perfectly  shown  by 
the  common  Jew's  harp,  which  when  struck  can  be  made 
to  utter  the  vowels  a,  e,  i,  o,  n.,  &c.,  by  simply  putting  the 
mouth  in  the  proper  position  for  speaking  these  vowels.     In 
this  experiment  the  player's  voice  emits  no  sound,  but  the 
vibrating  tongue  of  the  Jew's  harp  placed  m  front  of  the 
mouth  acts  as  a  substitute  for  the  vocal  chords,  and  the 
vowel-sounds  are  produced  by  the  various  positions  of  the 
cflvity  of  the  mouth,  modifying  the  quality  of  the  note,  by 
bringing  out  with  different  degrees  of  strength  the  series  of 
harmonic  tones  of  which  it  is  composed.     As  to  musical 
theorv  emotional  tone  and  vowel-tone  are  connected.     In 
fact,  an  emotional  tone  may  be  defined  as  a  vowel,  whoso 
particular  musical  quality  is  that  produced  by  the  human 
vocal  organs,   when   adjusted   to  a    particular    state    of 
feeling. 


3  sounded 

3S  of  par- 

of  vowels 

Bd  in   the 

jal  chords, 

Be  of  sheet 

form  two 

plit  across 

che  ind'a- 

he  la^-ynx, 

e  musical 

!  cavity  of 

f-box,  and 

)difie8  the 

Ity,  which 

overtones 

e  musical 

difference 

and  piano 

can  give 

quality 

lown  by 

36  made 

tting  the 

iweis.     In 

but  the 

It  of  the 

and  the 

QS  of  the 

note,  by 

series  of 

musical 

ted.     In 

whose 

human 

tate    of 


EMOTIONAL  AND  IMITATIVE   LANGUAGE. 


169 


1 


Europeans,  while  using  modulation  of  musical  pitch  as 
affecting  the  force  of  words  in  a  sentence,  know  nothing  of 
making  it  alter  the  dictionary-meaning  of  a  word.  But  this 
device  is  known  elsewhere,  especially  in  South-East  Asia, 
where  rises  and  falls  of  tone,  to  some  extent  like  those 
which  serve  us  in  conveying  emphasis,  question  and  answer, 
Sic,  actually  give  different  signification.  Thus  in  Siamese, 
hd= to  seek,  /m  =  pestilence,  Ad = five.  The  consequence  of 
this  elaborate  system  of  tone-accentuation  is  the  necessity 
of  an  accumulation  of  expletive  particles,  to  supply  the 
place  of  the  oratorical  or  emphatic  intonation,  which  being 
thus  given  over  to  the  dictionary  is  lost  for  the  grammar. 
Another  consequence  is,  that  the  system  of  setting  poetry  to 
music  becomes  radically  different  from  ours  ;  to  sing  a 
Siamese  song  to  a  European  tune  makes  the  meaning  of  the 
syllables  alter  according  to  their  rise  and  fall  in  pitch,  and 
turns  their  sense  into  the  wildest  nonsense.^  In  West 
Africa,  again,  the  same  device  appears :  Thus  in  Dahoman 
«o  — stick,  sd= horse,  80  =  thunder;  Yoruba,  />a  =  with,  bd= 
bend.^  For  practical  purposes,  this  linguistic  music  is 
hardly  to  be  commended,  but  theoretically  it  is  interesting, 
as  showing  that  man  does  not  servilely  follow  an  intuitive 
or  inherited  scheme  of  language,  but  works  out  in  various 
ways  the  resources  of  sound  as  a  means  of  expression. 

The  theory  of  consonants  is  much  more  obscure  than  that 
of  vowels.  They  are  not  musical  vibrations  as  vowels  are, 
but  noises  accompanying  them.  To  the  musician  such 
noises  as  the  rushing  of  the  wind  from  the  organ-pipe,  the 
scraping  of  the  violin,  tlie  sputtering  of  the  flute,  are  simply 
troublesome  as  interfering  with  his  musical  tones,  and  he 
takes  pains  to  diminish  them  as  much  as  may  be.  But  in 
the  art  of  language  noises  of  this  kind,  far  from  being 
avoided,  are  turned  to  immense  account  by  being  used  as 

'  See  Pallogoix,  '  Gramm.  Ling.  Thai.'  ;  Bastian,  in  'Monatsb.  Berlin. 
Akad.'  June  6,  1867,  and  '  Roy.  Asiatic  Soc'  June,  1S'j7- 

''  Burton,  in  '  Mom.  Anthrop.  Soc.,'  vol.  i.  p.  313  ;  Bowen,  '  Yoruba  Gr. 
and  Die'  p.  5  ;  see  J.  L.  Wilsoa,  '  W.  Afr,,'  p.  461. 


mi 


I' 


170 


EMOTIONAL   AND   IMITATIVE   LANOUAOE. 


consonants,  in  combination  with  the  musical  vowels.  As 
to  the  positions  and  movements  of  the  vocal  organs  in  pro- 
ducing consonants,  an  excellent  account  with  anatomical 
diagrams  is  given  in  Professor  Max  Miiller's  second  series 
of  Lectures.  For  the  present  purpose  of  passing  in  review 
the  various  de  aces  by  which  the  language-maker  has  con- 
trived to  make  sound  a  means  of  expressing  thought,  per- 
haps no  better  illustration  of  their  nature  can  be  mentioned 
than  Sir  Charles  Wheatstone's  account  of  his  speaking 
machine  ;  ^  for  one  of  the  best  ways  of  studying  difficult 
phenomena  is  to  see  them  artificially  imitated.  The  in- 
strument in  question  pronounced  Latin,  French,  and  Italian 
words  well :  it  could  say,  '  Je  vous  airae  de  t<;ut  mon 
coeur,'  'Leopoldus  Secundus  Romanorum  Imperator,'  and 
so  forth,  but  it  was  not  so  successful  with  German. 
As  to  the  vowels,  they  were  of  course  simply  sounded 
by  Buitable  reeds  and  pipes.  To  affect  them  with  con- 
sonants, contrivances  were  arranged  to  act  like  the  human 
organs.  Thus  p  was  made  by  suddenly  removing  the 
operator's  hand  from  the  mouth  of  the  figure,  and  h  in 
the  same  way,  except  that  the  mouth  was  not  quite 
fovered,  while  an  outlet  like  the  nostrils  was  used  in 
forming  m ;  /  and  v  were  rendered  by  modifying  the  shape 
of  the  mouth  by  a  hand ;  air  was  made  to  rush  through 
small  tubes  to  produce  the  sibilants  s  and  sh  ;  and  the 
liquids  r  and  I  were  sounded  by  the  action  of  tremulous 
reeds.  As  Wheatstone  remarks,  the  most  important  use  of 
such  ingenious  mechanical  imitations  of  speech  may  be  to 
fix  and  preserve  an  accurate  register  of  the  pronunciation  of 
different  languages.  A  perfectly  arranged  speaking  machine 
would  in  fact  represent  for  us  that  framework  of  language 
which  consists  of  mere  vowels  and  consonants,  though 
without  most  of  those  expressive  adjuncts  which  go  to  make 
up  the  conversation  of  speaking  men. 

Of  vowels  and  consonants  capable  of  being  employed  in 
language,  man  is  able  to  pronounce  and  distinguish  an 
'  C.  W.,  in  '  London  and  Westminster  Review,'  Oct.  1837. 


— -    W. 


ii!|; 


)wels.     As 
ms  in  pro- 
anatomical 
5ond  series 
T  in  review 
sr  has  con- 
ought,  per- 
mentioned 
}  speaking 
ng  difficult 
I.    The  in- 
and  Italian 
t(  ut  mon 
jrator,'  and 
h    German, 
ly  sounded 
with  con- 
the  human 
noving  the 
■   and  h  in 
not  quite 
used   in 
the  shape 
jh  through 
and  the 
tremulous 
ant  use  of 
may  be  to 
nciation  of 
\g  machine 
language 
ts,  though 
oro  to  make 

iployed  in 
[nguish  an 

1837. 


EMOTIONAL   AND  IMITATIVE   LANGUAGE. 


171 


enormous  variety.     But  this  great  stock  of  possible  sounds 
is  nowhere  brought  into  use  altogether,     Each  language  or 
dialect  of  the  world  is  found  in  practice  to  select  a  limited 
series  of  definite  vowels   and   consonants,  keeping  with 
tolerable  exactness  to  each,  and  thus  choosing  what  we  may 
call  its  phonetic  alpiiabet.    Neglecting  such  minor  differ- 
ences as  occur  in  the  speech  of  individuals  or  small  commu- 
nities, each  dialect  of  the  world  may  be  said  to  have  its  own 
phonetic  system,  and  these  phonetic  systems  vary  widely. 
Our  vowels,  for  instance,  differ  much  from  those  of  French 
and  Dutch.     French  knows  nothing  of  either  of  the  sounds 
which  we  write  as  th  in  thin  and  that,  while  the  Castilian 
lisped  c,  the  so-called  ceceo,  is  a  third  consonant  which  we 
must  again  make  shift  to  write  as  th,  though  it  is  quite 
distinct  in  sound  from  both  our  own.    It  is  quite  a  usual 
thing  for  us  to  find  foreign  languages  wanting  letters  even 
near  in  sound  to  some  of  ours,  while  possessing  others  un- 
familiar to  ourselves.     Among  such  cases  are  the  Chinese  ^^ 
difficulty  in  pronouncing  r,  and  the  want  of  s  and  /  in 
Australian  dialects.     When  foreigners  tried  to   teach  the 
Mohawks,  who  have  no  labials  in  their  language,  to  pro- 
nounce words  with  p  and  6  in  them,  they  protested  that  it  *^ 
was  too  ridiculous  to  expect  people  to  shut  their  mouths  to 
speak  ;  and  the  Portuguese  discoverers  of  Brazil,  remarking 
that  the  natives  had  neither  /,  I,  nor  r  in  their  language, 
neatly  described  them  as  a  people  with  neither  fe,  ley,  nor 
rey,  neither  faith,  law,  nor  king.     It  may  happen,  too,  that 
sounds  only  used  by  some  nations  as  interjectional  noises, 
unwritten  and  unwriteable,  shall  be  turned  to  account  by 
others  in  their  articulate  language.     Something  of  this  kind 
occurs  with  the  noises  called  '  clicks.'     Such  sounds   are 
familiar  to  us  as  interjections ;  thus  the  lateral  click  made 
in  the  cheek  (and  usually  in  the  left  cheek)  is  continually 
used  in  driving  horses,  while  varieties  of  the  dental  and 
palatal  clicL  uade  with  the  tongue  against  the  teeth  and  the 
roof  of  the  mouth,  are  common  in  the  nursery  as  expressions 
of  surprise,  reproof,  or  satisfaction.     Thus,  too,  the  natives 


'  M.j 

I  in 

.n 


172 


EMOTIONAL  AND   IMITATIVE   LANGUAGE. 


1  u 


'I 


of  Tierra  del  Fuego  express  'no'  bv  a  peculiar  cluck,  as 
do  also  the  Turks,  who  accompany  it  with  the  gesture  of 
throwing  back  the  head ;  and  it  appears  from  the  accounts 
of  travellers  that  the  clicks  of  surprise  and  admiration 
among  the  natives  of  Australia  are  much  like  those  we  hear 
at  home.  But  though  here  these  clicking  noises  are  only 
used  interjection  ally,  it  is  well  known  that  South  African 
races  have  taken  such  sounds  up  into  their  articulate  speech 
and  have  made,  as  we  may  say,  letters  of  them.  The  very 
name  of  Hottentots,  applied  to  the  Namaquas  and  other 
kindred  tribes,  appears  to  be  not  a  native  name  (as  Peter 
Kolb  thought)  but  a  rude  imitative  word  coined  by  the 
Dutch  to  express  the  clicking  'hot  en  tot,'  and  the  term 
HottentotinTn  has  been  thence  adopted  as  a  medical  descrip- 
tion of  one  of  the  varieties  of  stammering.  North- West 
America  is  another  district  of  the  world  distinguished  for 
th'i  production  of  strange  clucking,  gurgling,  and  grunting 
letters,  difficult  or  impossible  to  European  voices.  More- 
over, there  are  many  sounds  capable  of  being  used  in 
articulate  speech,  varieties  of  chirping,  whistling,  blowing, 
and  sucking  noises,  of  which  some  are  familiar  to  our  own 
use  as  calls  to  animals,  or  inter jectional  noises  of  contempt 
or  surprise,  but  which  no  tribe  is  known  to  have  brought 
into  their  alphabet.  With  all  the  vast  phonetic  variety  of 
known  languages,  the  limits  of  possible  utterance  are  far 
from  being  reached. 

Up  to  a  certain  point  we  can  understand  the  reasons 
which  have  guided  the  various  tribes  of  mankind  in  the 
selection  of  their  various  alphabets  ;  ease  of  utterance  to  the 
speaker,  combined  with  distinctness  of  effect  to  the  hearer, 
have  been  undoubtedly  among  the  principal  of  the  selecting 
causes.  We  may  fairly  connect  with  the  close  uniformity  of 
men's  organs  of  speech  all  over  the  world,  the  general  simi- 
larity which  prevails  in  the  phonetic  systems  of  the  most 
different  languages,  and  which  gives  us  the  power  of  roughly 
writing  down  so  large  a  proportion  of  any  one  language  by 
means  of  an  alphabet  intend ^d  for  any  other.     But  while 


I 


:  cluck,  afl 
gesture  of 
0  accounta 
idmiration 
se  we  hear 
)s  are  only 
ih  African 
late  speech 

The  very 
and  other 
i  (as  Peter 
sd  by  the 

the  term 
al  descrip- 
orth-West 
;uished  for 
i  grunting 
38.  More- 
y  used  in 
.  blowing, 
D  our  own 

contempt 
e  brought 
variety  of 
ce  are  far 

e  reasons 
nd  in  the 
nee  to  the 
le  hearer, 
selecting 
brmity  of 
eral  simi- 
the  most 
f  roughly 
ffuage  by 
?ut  while 


EMOTIONAL   AND   IMITATIVE   LANGUAGE. 


173 


we  thus  account  by  physical  similarity  for  the  existence  of  a 
kind  of  natural  alphabet  common  to  mankind,  we  must  look 
to  other  causes  to  detern^'  v^  the  selection  of  sounda  used  in 
different  languages,  and  ir  account  for  those  remarkable 
courses  of  change  which  go  on  in  languages  of  a  common 
stock,  producing  in  Europe  such  variations  of  one  original 
word  &B  pater,  father,  voter,  or  in  the  islands  of  Polynesia 
offering  us  the  numeral  5  under  the  strangely-varied  forms 
of  lima,  rima,  dima,  nima,  and  hima.  Changes  of  this  sort 
have  acted  so  widely  and  regularly,  that  since  the  enuncia- 
tion of  Grimm's  law  their  study  has  become  a  main  part  of 
philology.  Though  their  causes  are  as  yet  so  obscure,  we 
may  at  least  argue  that  such  wide  and  definite  operations 
cannot  be  due  to  chance  or  arbitrary  fancy,  but  must  be  the 
result  of  laws  as  wide  and  definite  as  themselves. 

Let  UB  now  suppose  a  book  to  be  written  with  a  tolerably 
correct  alphabet,  for  instance  an  ordinary  Italian  book,  or 
an  English  one  in  some  good  system  of  phonetic  letters. 
To  suppose  English  written  in  the  makeshift  alphabet  which 
we  still  keep  in  use,  would  be  of  course  to  complicate  the 
matter  in  hand  with  a  new  and  needless  difficulty.  If,  then, 
the  book  be  written  in  a  sufficient  alphabet,  and  handed  to 
a  reader,  his  office  will  by  no  means  stop  short  at  rendering 
back  into  articulate  sounds  the  vowels  and  c  isonants  before 
him,  as  though  he  were  reading  over  proo^  for  the  press. 
For  the  emotional  tone  just  spoken  of  has  dropped  out  in 
writing  down  the  words  in  letters,  and  it  will  be  the  reader's 
duty  to  guess  from  the  meaning  of  the  words  what  this  tone 
should  be,  and  to  put  it  in  again  accordingly.  He  has  more- 
over to  introduce  emphasis,  whether  by  accent  or  stress,  on 
certain  syllables  or  words,  thereby  altering  their  eff'efct  in 
the  sentence ;  if  he  says,  for  example,  '  I  never  sold  you 
that  horse,'  an  emphasis  on  any  one  of  these  six  words  will 
alter  the  import  of  the  whole  phrase.  Now,  in  emphatic 
pronunciation  two  distinct  processes  are  to  !  e  remarked. 
The  effect  produced  by  changes  in  loudness  and  duration  of 
words  is  directly  imitative ;  it  is  a  mere  gesture  made  with 


i: 


% 


b    I 


174 


EMOTIONAL  AND   IMITATIVE   LANQUAQK. 


N  "^ 


i 


iii: 


the  voice,  n'-  "^^  "nay  notice  by  the  way  in  which  any  one 
will  speak  oi  'a  »hori  sharp  answer,'  'a  long  ■■    try  year,' 
'a  loiui  hurst  of  music,'  'a  gentle  gliding  nn  Uuu,*  as  com- 
pared with  the  like  manner  in  which  the  gesture-language 
would  adapt  its  force  and  speed  to  the  kind  of  action  to  be 
represented.  Written  language  can  hardly  convey  but  by  the 
context  the  striking  effects  which  our  imitative  faculty  adds 
to  spoken  language,  in  our  continual  endeavour  to  make  the 
sound  of  each  word  we  speak  a  sort  of  echo  to  its  sense. 
We  see  this  in  the  difference  between  writing  and  telling  the 
little  story  of  the  man  who  was  worried  by  being  talked  to 
about  'good  books.'     *Do  you  mean,'  he  asked,  speaking 
shortly  with  a  face  of  strong  firm  approval, '  good  books  ? ' 
'  or,'  with  a  drawl  and  a  fatuous-benevolent  simper,  '  goo-d 
books  ? '  Musical  accent  (accentua,  ^  musical  tone)  is  turned  to 
account  as  a  means  of  emphasis,  as  when  we  give  prominence 
to  a  particular  syllable  or  word  in  a  sentence  by  raising  or 
depressing  it  a  semi-tone   or  more.     The  reader  has  to 
divide  his  sentences  with  pauses,  being  guided  in  this  to 
some  extont  by  stops ;  the  rhythmic  measure  in  which  he 
will  vxiti.Y  prose  as  well  as  poetry  is  not  without  its  effect; 
and  hi    liay  again  to  introduce  music  by  speaking  each 
Renteiice  to  a,  kind  of  imperfect  melody.    Professor  Helm- 
holtz  endeavours  to  write  down  in  musical  notes  how  a 
German  with  a  bass  voice,  speaking  on  B  flat,  might  say, 
'  Ich  bin  spatzieren  gegangen. — Bist  du  spatzieren  gegang- 
en  ? '  falling  a  fourth  (to  F)  at  the  end  of  the  affirmative 
sentence,  and  rising  a  fifth  (to  f)  in  asking  the  question, 
thus  ranging  through  an  octave.  ^    When  an  English  speaker 
tries  to  illustrate  in  bis  oM'n  language  the  rising  and  falling 
tones  of  Siamese  vowels,  he  compares  them  with  the  English 
tones  of  question  and  answer,  as  in  '  Will  you  go  ?   Yes.'  ^ 
The  rules  of  this  imperfect  musical  intonation  in  ordinary 
conversation  have  been  as  yet  but  little  studied.    But  as  a 


Pill' 


*  *  Accentus  est  etiam  in  dicendo  cantus  obscurior.' — Cic.  de  Orat. 

'  Helmholtz,  p.  364. 

^  Caswell,  in  Bastian,  'Berlin.  Akad.'  I.  c. 


liii 


ih  any  one 
ary  year,' 
u,'  as  com- 
a-language 
3tion  to  be 
but  by  the 
,culty  adds 
)  make  the 
I  its  sense, 
telling  the 
y  talked  to 
,  speaking 
kL  books  ? ' 
3er,  Ujoo-d 
8  turned  to 
rominence 
raising  or 
er  has  to 
in  this  to 
which  he 
its  effect; 
cing  each 
)or  Helm- 
es  how  a 
ight  say, 
gegang. 
irmative 
question, 
h  speaker 
d  falling 
e  English 
?   Yes."' 
ordinary 
But  as  a 

e  Orat. 


EMOTIONAL  AND   IMITATIVE   LANQUAOE. 


175 


'9  SO  oare- 

bt    Utlicult 

^ourtonants 

may  not 

music   of  the 


means  of  giving  solemnity  and  pathos  to  lai  ^uage,  it  has 
been  more  fully  developed  and  even  systematized  under 
exact  rules  of  melody,  and  we  thus  have  on  the  <  'le  hand 
ecclesiastical  intoning  and  the  less  conventional  hau  singing 
so  often  to  bo  heard  in  religious  meetings,  auii  m  the  other 
the  ancient  and  modern  theatr  ,il  r<'<  'Native.  T?y  such 
intermediate  stages  we  may  cross  1    e  ■  ''    n-Nal  from 

spoken  prose,  with  the  musical  pitcli  (     it 
lessly  kept,  and  so  obscured  by  consor 
even  to  determine,  to  full  song,  in  w 
are  as   much  as  possible  suppressed,  tha 
interfere  with  the   precise   and  expressive 
vowels. 

Proceeding  now  to  survey  such  parts  of  the  vocabulary  of 
mankind  as  appear  to  have  an  intelligible  origin  in  the  direct 
expression  of  sense  by  sound,  let  us  first  examine  Interjec- 
tions. When  Home  Tooke  spoke,  in  words  often  repeated 
since,  of '  the  brutish  inarticulate  Interjection,'  ho  certainly 
meant  to  express  his  contempt  for  a  mode  of  expression 
which  lay  outside  his  own  too  narrow  view  of  language. 
But  the  epithets  are  in  themselves  justifiable  enough. 
Interjections  are  undoubtedly  to  a  certain  extent  '  brutish' 
in  their  analogy  to  the  cries  of  animals  ;  and  the  fact  gives 
them  an  especial  interest  to  modern  observers,  who  are  thus 
enabled  to  trace  phenomena  belonging  to  the  mental  state 
of  the  lower  animals  up  into  the  midst  of  the  most  highly 
cultivated  human  language.  It  is  also  true  that  they  are 
'  inarticulate,'  so  far  at  least  that  the  systems  of  consonants 
and  vowels  recognized  by  grammarians  break  down  more 
hopelessly  than  elsewhere  in  the  attempt  to  write  down 
interjections.  Alphabetic  writing  is  far  too  incomplete  and 
clumsy  an  instrument  to  render  their  peculiar  and  variously- 
modulated  sounds,  for  which  a  few  conventionally-written 
words  do  duty  poorly  enough,  In  reading  aloud,  and  some- 
times even  in  the  talk  of  those  who  have  learnt  rather  from 
books  than  from  the  living  world,  we  may  hear  these  awkward 
imitations,  ahem  !  heln !  tush  !  tut !  pshaw !  now  carrying 


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EMOnOKAL  AND  IMITATIVE   LANGUAGE. 


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the  unquestioned  authority  of  words  printed  in  a  book,  and 
reproduced  letter  for  letter  with  a  most  amusing  accuracy. 
But  when  Home  Tooke  fastens  upon  an  unfortunate  Italian 
grammarian  and  describes  him  as  '  The  industrious  and 
exact  Cinonio,  who  does  not  appear  ever  to  have  had  a 
single  glimpse  of  reason,'  it  is  not  easy  to  see  what  the 
pioneer  of  English  philology  could  find  to  object  to  in 
Cinonio's  obviously  true  assertion,  that  a  single  interjection, 
ah!  or  ahi!  is  capable  of  expressing  more  than  twenty 
different  emotions  or  intentions,  such  as  pain,  entreaty, 
threatening,  sighing,  disdain,  according  to  the  tone  in  which 
it  is  uttered.^  The  fact  that  interjections  do  thus  utter 
feelings  is  quite  beyond  dispute,  and  the  philologist's 
concern  with  them  is  on  the  one  hand  to  study  their  action 
in  expressing  emotion,  and  on  the  other  to  trace  their 
passage  into  more  fully -formed  words,  such  as  have  their 
place  in  connected  syntax  and  form  part  of  logical  proposi- 
tions. 

In  the  first  place,  however,  it  is  necessary  to  separate 
from  proper  interjections  the  many  sense-words  which,  often 
kept  up  in  a  mutilated  or  old-fashioned  guise,  come  so  close 
to  them  both  in  appearance  and  in  use.  Among  classic 
examples  are  <^epe,  bevTf,  age  !  made  !  Such  a  word  is  hail ! 
which,  as  the  Gothic  Bible  shows,  was  originally  an  adjec- 
tive, '  whole,  hale,  prosperous,'  used  vocatively,  just  as  the 
Italians  cry  hravo !  hrava !  bravi !  brave  !  When  the 
Albican  negro  cries  out  in  fear  or  wonder  vfidrtid  !  mdmd  /  ^ 
he  might  be  thought  to  be  uttering  a  real  interjection,  '  a 
word  used  to  express  some  passion  or  emotion  of  the  mind,' 
as  Lindley  Murray  has  it,  but  in  fact  he  is  simply  calling, 
grown-up  baby  as  he  is,  for  his  mother ;  and  the  very  same 


*  Home  Tooke.  '  Diversions  of  Purley,'  2nd  ed.  London,  1798,  pt.  i.  pp. 
60-8. 

"  R  F.  Burton,  'Lake  Regions  of  Central  AMca,  vol.  ii.  p.  333  ;  Living- 
stone, '  Missionary  Tr.  in  S.  Africa,'  p.  298  ;  ' Gr.  of  Mpongv.e  lang,'  (A. 
B.  C.  F.  Missions,  Rev.  J.  L.  Wilson),  p.  27.  See  Callaway,  '  Zulu  Tales,' 
vol.  i.  p.  59. 


EMOTIONAL  AND  IMITATIVE  LANGUAGE. 


177 


I  book,  and 
accuracy, 
ate  Italian 
rious  and 
ave  had  a 
what  the 
ject  to  in 
iterjection, 
an  twenty 
entreaty, 
e  in  which 
;hus  utter 
bilologist's 
leir  action 
race  their 
bave  their 
il  proposi- 

j  separate 

hich,  often 

ae  so  close 

classic 

is  hail ! 

an  adjec- 

ist  as  the 

Vhen  the 

mdinid  !  * 

ction,  'a 

he  mind,' 

y  calling, 

ery  same 


8,  pt.  i.  pp. 

3  ;  Living- 

larg,'  (A. 

iulu  Tales,' 


'g 


thing  has  been  noticed  among  Indians  of  Upper  California, 
who  as  an  expression  of  pain  cry,  and  !  that  is  '  mother.'  ^ 
Other  exclamations  consist  of  a  pure  interjection  combined 
with  a  pronoun,  as  olitoi  I  oivfih  !  ah  me!  or  with  an  adjective, 
as  alas  !  h^las  !  (ah  weary !)  With  what  care  interjections 
should  be  sifted,  to  avoid  the  risk  of  treating  as  original 
elementary  sounds  of  language  what  are  really  nothing  but 
sense-words,  we  may  judge  from  the  way  in  which  the 
common  English  exclamation  wdl !  well !  approaches  the 
genuine  interjectional  sound  in  the  Coptic  expression  'to 
make  ouelouele'  which  signifies  to  wail,  Latin  ulidare. 
Still  better,  we  may  find  a  learned  traveller  in  the  last 
century  quite  seriously  remarking,  apropos  of  the  old  Greek 
battle-shout,  akaXdl  akaXAl  that  the  Turks  to  this  day 
call  out  Allah  !  Allah  !  Allah  !   upon  the  like  occasion.'^ 

The  calls  to  animals  customary  in  difierent  countries  ^ 
are  to  a  great  extent  interjectional  in  their  use,  but  to 
attempt  to  explain  them  as  a  whole  is  to  step  upon  as 
slippery  ground  as  lies  within  the  range  of  philology. 
Sometimes  they  may  be  in  fact  pure  interjections,  like  the 
«cM  adcA  !  mentioned  as  an  old  German  cry  to  scare  birds, 
as  we  should  say  8h  sh  !  or  the  ad  !  with  which  the  Indians 
of  Brazil  call  their  dogs.  Or  they  may  be  set  down  as 
simple  imitations  of  the  animal's  own  cries,  as  the  cinching 
to  call  fowls  in  our  own  farm-yards,  or  the  Austrian  calls 
of  pi  pi  !  or  tiet  tiet !  to  chickens,  or  the  Swabian  kauter 
Icout !  to  turkeys,  or  the  shepherd's  baaing  to  call  sheep 
in  India.  In  other  cases,  however,  they  may  be  sense- 
words  more  or  less  broken  down,  as  when  the  creature  is 
spoken  to  by  a  sound  which  seems  merely  taken  from 
its  own  common  name.    If  an  English  countryman  meets 

•  Arroyo  de  laCuesta,  'Gr.  of  Mutsun  Lang.'  p.  39,  in  Smithsonian  Contr., 
vol.  iii. ;  Neapolitan  mamma  mial  exclamation  of  wonder,  &c.,  Liebrecht 
in  Getting.  Gel.  Anz.  1872,  p.  1287. 

''  Shaw,  *  Travels  in  Barbary,'  in  Pinkerton,  vol.  xv.  p.  669. 

'  Some  of  the  examples  here  cited,  will  be  found  in  Grimm,  '  Deutsche 
Gr.'  vol.  iii.  p.  308  ;  Pott,  'Doppelung.'  p.  27  ;  Wedgwood,  '  Origin  of  Lan- 
guage.' 

VOL.  I.  N 


in.3 

*■'  ^ 


r.   j 


■I?;:",;  ■ 


178 


EMOTIONAL  AND  IMITATIVE   LANGUAGE. 


;:l?(, 


«i:! 


IP  lit 


a  stray  sheep-dog,  he  will  simply  call  to  him  ship  !  ship  ! 
So  schdp  schdpf  is  an  Austrian  call  to  sheep,  and  koss 
hnhel  kosa  !  to  cows.  In  German  districts  gus  gua  !  guach 
giiach  !  goa  goa  !  are  set  down  as  calls  to  geese  ;  and  when 
we  notice  that  the  Bohemian  peasant  calls  husy  !  to  them, 
we  remember  that  the  name  for  goose  in  his  language  is 
huaa,  a  word  familiar  to  English  ears  in  the  name  of  John 
Huss.  The  Bohemian,  again,  will  call  to  his  dog  pa  pa  ! 
but  then  pea  means  'dog.'  Other  sense-words  addressed 
\f>  animals  break  down  by  long  repetition  into  mutilated 
forms.  When  we  are  told  that  the  to  to!  with  which  a 
Portuguese  calls  a  dog  is  short  for  toma  toma  !  {i.e., '  take 
take!')  which  tells  him  to  come  and  take  his  food,  we 
admit  the  explanation  as  plausible ;  and  the  coop  coop ! 
which  a  cockney  might  so  easily  mistake  for  a  pure  inter- 
jection, is  only  '  Come  up !   come  up ! ' 

'Come  uppe,  Whitefoot,  come  uppe,  Lightfoot, 
Come  uppe,  Jetty,  rise  and  follow, 
Jetty,  to  tlie  milking  shed.' 

But  I  cannot  offer  a  plausible  guess  at  the  origin  of  such 
calls  as  hufhiif!  to  horses,  hilhl  hiihl!  to  geese,  deckel  deckel ! 
to  sheep.  It  is  fortunate  for  etymologists  tha.  'i  trivial 
litble  words  have  not  an  importance  propori. .  -d  to  the 
difficulty  of  clearing  up  their  origin.  The  word  puaa! 
raises  an  interesting  philological  problem.  An  English 
child  calling  puaa  puas  !  is  very  likely  keeping  up  the  trace 
of  the  old  Keltic  name  for  the  cat,  Irish  pus,  Erse  pusag, 
Gaelic  puia.  Similar  calls  are  known  elsewhere  in  Europe 
(as  in  Saxony,  p^a  p^a  !),  and  there  is  some  reason  to  think 
that  the  cat,  which  came  to  us  from  the  East,  brought  with 
it  one  of  its  names,  which  is  still  cuiTent  there,  Tamil  p'Aaei  ! 
Afghan  pnaha,  Persian  pushak,  &c.  Mr.  Wedgwood  finds 
an  origin  for  the  call  in  an  imitation  of  the  cat's  spitting, 
and  remarks  that  the  Servians  cry  pis  !  to  drive  a  cat  away, 
while  the  Albanians  use  a  similar  sound  to  call  it.  The 
way  in  which  the  cry  of  piLsa  !  has  furnished  a  name  for 


E. 


EMOTIONAL  AND  IMITATIVE  LANGUAGE. 


179 


bhip  /  ship  f 
ep,  and  koss 

gus!  gusch 
I ;  and  when 
ry  !  to  them, 

language  is 
Line  of  John 

dog  ps  ps  ! 
is  audressed 
to  mutilated 
rith  which  a 
/  (i.e., '  take 
his  food,  we 
)  coop  coop! 
a  pure  inter- 

htfoot, 


•igin  of  such 

\eckel  deckel ! 

'i  trivial 

A  to  the 

ord  puss! 

n  English 

up  the  trace 

Erse  pusag, 

in  Europe 

on  to  think 

ought  with 

tmil  piisei ! 

wood  finds 

,'s  spitting, 

|a  cat  away, 

it.     The 

name  for 


the  cat  itself,  comes  out  curiously  in  countries  where  the 
animal  has  been  lately  introduced  by  Englishmen.  Thus 
hoosi  is  the  recognized  word  for  cat  in  the  Tonga  Islands, 
no  doubt  from  Captain  Cook's  time.  Among  Indian  tribes 
of  North-west  America,  2yw8h,  pish-pish,  appear  in  native 
languages  with  the  meaning  of  cat;  and  not  only  is  the 
European  cat  called  a  puss  puss  in  the  Chinook  jargon,  but 
in  the  same  curious  dialect  the  word  is  applied  to  'a 
native  beast,  the  cougar,  now  called  'hyas  puss-puss,^  i.e., 
'  great  cat.'  * 

The  derivation  of  names  of  animals  in  this  manner  from 
calls  to  them,  may  perhaps  not  have  been  unfrequent.  It 
appears  that  huss  !  is  a  cry  used  in  Switzerland  to  set  dogs 
on  to  fight,  as  s — s!  might  be  in  England,  and  that  the 
Swiss  call  a  dog  huss  or  hauss,  possibly  from  this.  We 
know  the  cry  of  dill !  dilly  !  as  a  recognized  call  to  ducks  in 
England,  and  it  is  diflScult  to  think  it  a  corruption  of  any 
English  word  or  phrase,  for  the  Bohemians  also  call  dlidli ! 
to  their  ducks.  Now,  though  dill  or  dilly  may  not  be  found 
in  our  dictionaries  as  the  r  j,mo  for  a  duck,  yet  the  way  in 
which  Hood  can  use  it  as  such  in  one  of  his  best  known 
comic  poems,  shows  perfectly  the  easy  and  natural  step  by 
which  such  transitions  can  be  made : — 

'Tor  Death  among  the  water-lilies, 
Cried  "  Due  ad  me  "  to  all  her  dilliea.' 

In  just  the  same  way,  because  gee  !  is  a  usual  call  of  the 
English  waggoner  to  his  horses,  the  word  gee-gee  has  be- 
come a  familiar  nursery  noun  meaning  a  horse.  And 
neither  in  such  nursery  words,  nor  in  words  coined  in  jest, 

*  SeePictet,  'Origineslndo-Europ.' parti,  p. 382  ;  Caldwell,  'Gr.  of  Dni- 
vidian  Langs.'  p.  465  ;  Wedgwood,  Die.  s.  v.  'puss,'  &c.  ;  Mariner,  'Tonga 
Is.  (Voeab).' ;  Gibbs,  '  Die.  of  Chinook  Jargon,'  Smithsonian  Coll.  No.  161  ; 
Pandosy,  'Gr.  and  Die.  of  Yakama,'  Smithson.  Contr.  vol.  iii. ;  compare 
J.  L.  Wilson,  '  Mpongwe  Gr.'  p.  57.  The  Hindu  ehild's  eall  to  the  cat  mun 
mun!  may  be  from  Hindust.  mdno  =  cat.  It.  micio,  Fr.  mite,  minon,  Ger. 
mieee,  &c.  =  *  cat,'  and  Sp.  miz!  Ger.  mim!  &c.  = '  puss ! '  are  from  imitations 
of  a  mew. 

N  2, 


jll'i'i. 


"   1 
i 


180 


EMOTIONAL  AND  IMITATIVE   LANGUAGE. 


'm 


iiiiiji 
iiii 


f  I 


Itiili 


k\'[ 


is  the  evidence  bearing  on  the  origin  of  language  to  be  set 
aside  as  worthless ;  for  it  may  be  taken  as  a  maxim  of 
ethnology,  that  what  is  done  among  civilized  men  in  jest, 
or  among  civilized  children  in  the  nursery,  is  apt  to  find  its 
analogue  in  the  serious  mental  effort  of  savage,  and  there- 
fore of  primaeval  tribes. 

Drivers'  calls  to  their  beasts,  such  as  this  gee!  gee-hof 
to  urge  on  horses,  and  iveh  !  wok  !  to  stop  them,  form  part 
of  the  vernacular  of  particular  districts.  The  geho  I  perhaps 
came  to  England  in  the  Norman-French,  for  it  is  known 
in  France,  and  appears  in  the  Italian  dictionary  as  gio ! 
The  traveller  who  has  been  hearing  the  drivers  in  the 
Grisons  stop  their  horses  with  a  long  br-r-r  !  may  cross  a 
pass  and  hear  on  the  other  side  a  kil-u-ii !  instead.  The 
ploughman's  calls  to  turn  the  leaders  of  the  team  to  right 
and  left  have  passed  into  proverb.  In  France  they  say  of 
a  stupid  clown  '  II  n'entend  ni  a  dia  /  ni  ^  Jiurhaut ! '  and 
the  coiTesponding  Platt-Deutsch  phrase  is  '  He  weet  nich 
hutt!  noch  hoh!'  So  there  is  a  regular  language  to 
camels,  as  Captain  Bui-ton  remarks  on  his  journey  to 
Mekka :  ikh  ikh !  makes  them  kneel,  ydhh  ydhh !  urges 
them  on,  hai  hai  !  induces  caution,  and  so  forth.  In  the 
formation  of  these  quaint  expressions,  two  causes  have 
been  at  work.  The  sounds  seem  sometimes  thoroughly 
interjectional,  as  the  Arab  hai !  of  caution,  or  the  French 
hue  !  North  German ^6' !  Whatever  their  origin,  they  may 
be  made  to  carry  their  sense  by  imitative  tones  expressive 
to  the  ear  of  both  horse  and  man,  as  any  one  will  say  who 
hears  the  contrast  between  the  short  and  sharp  high-pitched 
hilp!  which  tells  the  Swiss  horse  to  go  faster,  and  the 
long-drawn  hu-il-il-u!  which  brings  him  to  a  stand. 
Also,  the  way  in  which  common  sense-words  are  taken 
up  into  calls  like  gee-up !  woh-back  !  shows  that  we  may 
expect  to  find  various  old  broken  fragments  of  formal 
language  in  the  list,  and  such  on  inspection  we  find  accord- 
ingly. The  following  lines  are  quoted  by  Halliwell  from 
the  Micro-Cynicon  (1599):— 


¥\m 


EMOTIONAL   AND   IMITATIVE   LANOUAQE. 


181 


je  to  be  set 
maxim  of 
nen  in  jest, 
)t  to  find  its 
,  and  there- 

ee!  gee-ho! 
I,  form  part 
\o  !  perhaps 
it  is  known 
iry  as  gio ! 
/ers  in 


the 


may  cross  a 

stead.    The 

am  to  right 

they  say  of 

kaut!'  and 

3  weet  nich 

anguage   to 

journey  to 

hh !   urges 

•th.    In  the 

auses  have 

thoroughly 

the  French 

,  they  may 

expressive 

1  say  who 

gh-pitched 

and  the 

a    stand. 

are  taken 

we  may 

of  formal 

nd  accord- 

iwell  from 


'  A  base  borne  issue  of  a  baser  syer, 
Bred  in  a  cottage,  wandering  in  the  myer. 
With  nailed  shooes  and  whipstaflFe  in  his  hand, 
Who  with  a  lutj  and  ree  the  beasts  command.' 

This  ree!  is  equivalent  to  'right'  (riddle-me-ree= riddle 
me  right),  and  tells  the  leader  of  the  team  to  bear  to  the 
right  hand.  The  hey!  may  correspond  with  heit!  or 
caniether!  which  call  him  to  bear  '  hither,'  i.e.,  to  the  left. 
In  Germany  har  !  hdr  !  har-iXh  !  are  likewise  the  same  as 
'  h§iv  '  hither,  to  the  left.'  So  ^wude  !  schwude  1  zivuder  ! 
'  to  the  left,'  are  of  course  simply  '  zuwider,'  '  on  the 
contrary  way.'  Pairs  of  calls  for  'right'  and  'left'  in 
German-speaking  countries  are  hot ! — har  !  and  hott ! — 
wist  !  This  wist  !  is  an  interesting  example  of  the  keeping 
up  of  ancient  words  in  such  popular  tradition.  It  is 
evidently  a  mutilated  form  of  an  old  German  word  for  the 
left  hand,  winistrd,  Anglo-Saxon  ivinstre,  a  name  long 
since  forgotten  by  modern  High  German,  as  by  our  own 
modern  English.^ 

As  quaint  a  mixture  of  words  and  interjectional  cries  as  I 
have  met  with,  is  in  the  great  French  Encyclopaedia,^  which 
gives  a  minute  description  of  the  hunter's  craft,  and  pre- 
scribes exactly  what  is  to  be  cried  to  the  hounds  under  all 
possible  contingencies  of  the  chase.  If  the  creatures 
understood  grammar  and  syntax,  the  language  could  not  be 
more  accurately  arranged  for  their  ears.  Sometimes  we 
have  what  seem  pure  interjectional  cries.  Thus,  to 
encourage  the  hounds  to  work,  the  huntsman  is  to  call  to 
them  hd  halle  halle  halle  !  while  to  bring  them  up  before 
they  are  uncoupled  it  is  prescribed  that  he  shall  call  hau 
hau  !  or  hau  tahaut  !  and  when  they  are  uncoupled  he  is  to 
change  his  cry  to  hau  la  y  la  la  y  la  tayau  !  a  call  which 


i>. 


'  For  lists  of  drivers'  words,  see  Grimm,  1.  c. ;   Pott,  '  Zilhlmethode,' 
261;  Halliwell,  'Die.  of  Archaic  and  Provincial  English,'  s.  v.  'ree;' 


Brand,  vol.  ii.  p.  15  ;  Pictet,  part  ii.  p.  489. 

^  '  Encyclopedie,  ou  Dictionnaire  Raisonne  des  Sciences,  &c.'  Recueil  de 
Planches,  Paris,  1763,  art.  '  Chasses.'  The  traditional  cries  are  still  more 
or  less  in  use.    See  *  A  Week  in  a  French  Country-house.' 


vU 


■  ttmjl , 

'  UK'  n 


iJi 


I 

}        i 

«.        I 

!»■.■       ) 
'\         ] 

•M.     ,  . 

U     I 
( 


f 


:iff 


182 


EMOTIONAL   AND  IMITATIVE   LANGUAQE. 


i!i 


!  lljii 


't  iilii 


I  Hill 


suggests  the  Norman  original  of  the  English  tally-ho ! 
With  cries  of  this  kind  plain  French  words  are  intermixed, 
hdb  hellement  Id  ila,  Id  ila,  han  valet ! — hau  Vami,  tan  tau 
aprh  aprh,  d  route  d  route  !  and  so  on.  And  sometimes 
words  have  broken  down  into  calls  whose  sense  is  not 
quite  gone,  like  the  '  vols  le  ci '  and  the  *  vols  le  ce  Test,* 
which  are  still  to  be  distinguished  in  the  shout  which  is  to 
tell  the  hunters  that  the  stag  they  have  been  chasing  has 
made  a  return,  vauleci  revari  vaulecelez  !  But  the  drollest 
thing  in  the  treatise  is  the  grave  set  of  English  words 
(in  very  Gallic  shape)  with  which  English  dogs  ax'e  to  be 
spoken  to,  because,  as  the  author  says,  '  there  are  many 
English  hounds  in  France,  and  it  is  difficult  to  get  them 
to  work  when  you  speak  to  them  in  an  unknown  tongue, 

.f       that  is,  in  other  terms  than  they  have  been  trained  to.' 

,//  Therefore,  to  call  them,  the  huntsman  is  to  cry  here  do-do 
ho  ho!  to  get  them  back  to  thd  right  track  he  is  to  say 

/  houpe  hoy,  houpe  hoy  !  when  there  are  several  on  ahead  of 
the  rest  of  the  pack,  he  is  to  ride  up  to  them  and  cry  saf 
if)ie  hoy,  saf  me  boy  !  and  lastly,  if  they  are  obstinate  and 
will  not  stop,  he  is  to  make  them  go  back  with  a  shout  of 
cohat,  cobat ! 

How  far  the  lower  animals  may  attach  any  inherent 
meaning  to  interjectional  sounds  is  a  question  not  easy  to 
answer.  But  it  is  plain  that  in  most  of  the  cases  mentioned 
here  they  only  understand  them  as  recognized  signals 
which  have  a  meaning  by  regular  association,  as  when  they 
remember  that  they  are  fed  with  one  noise  and  driven  away 
with  another,  and  they  also  pay  attention  to  the  gestures 
which  accompany  the  cries.  Thus  the  well-known  Spanish 
way  of  calling  the  cat  is  miz  m/iz  !  while  sape  zape  !  is  used 
to  drive  it  away ;  and  the  writer  of  an  old  dictionary 
maintains  that  there  can  be  no  real  difference  between  these 
words  except  by  custom,  for,  he  declares,  he  has  heard  that 
in  a  certain  monastery  where  they  kept  very  handsome 

\        cats,  the  brother  in  charge  of  the  refectory  hit  upon  the 
/      device  of  calling  zape  za23e  !  to  them  when  he  gave  them 


l!!ll 


EMOTIONAL   AND  IMITATIVE   LANGUAOE. 


183 


h.  tally-ho  ! 
intennixed, 
mi,  tau  tau 
.  Bometimes 
ense  is  not 

le  ce  Test/ 
which  is  to 
chasing  has 
the  drollest 
flish  words 
8  are  to  be 
)  are  many 
o  get  them 
wn  tongue, 
trained  to.' 

here  do-do 
e  is  to  say 
n  ahead  of 
ind  cry  aaf 
itinate  and 

a  shout  of 

y  inherent 
aot  easy  to 
mentioned 
signals 
when  they 
iven  away 
e  gestures 
n  Spanish 

/  is  used 
dictionary 
veen  these 
leard  that 

andsome 
upon  the 
ave  them 


tlieir  food,  and  then  he  drove  them  away  with  a  stick, 
crying  angrily  miz  miz  ;  and  this  of  course  prevented  any 
stranger  from  calling  and  stealing  them,  for  only  he  and 
the  cats  knew  the  secret !  ^  To  philologists,  the  manner 
in  which  such  calls  to  animals  become  customary  in  par- 
ticular districts  illustrates  the  consensus  by  which  the  use 
of  words  IS  settled.  Each  case  of  the  kind  indicates  that 
a  word  has  prevailed  by  selection  among  a  certain  society 
of  men,  and  the  main  reasons  of  words  holding  their 
gi'ound  within  particular  limits,  though  it  is  so  difficult 
to  assign  them  exactly  in  each  case,  are  probably  inherent 
fitness  in  the  first  place,  and  traditional  inheritance  in 
the  second. 

When  the  ground  has  been  cleared  of  obscure  or  muti- 
lated sense-words,  there  remains  behind  a  residue  of  real 
sound-words,  or  pure  interjections.  It  has  long  and 
reasonably  been  considered  that  the  place  in  history  of 
these  expressions  is  a  very  primitive  one.  Thus  De 
Brosses  describes  them  as  necessary  and  natural  words, 
common  to  all  mankind,  and  produced  by  the  combination 
of  man's  conformation  with  the  interior  affections  of  his 
mind.  One  of  the  best  means  of  judging  the  relation 
between  interjectional  utterances  and  the  feelings  they 
express,  is  to  compare  the  voices  of  the  lower  animals  with 
our  own.  To  a  considerable  extent  there  is  a  similarity. 
As  their  bodily  and  mental  structure  has  an  analogy  with 
our  own,  so  they  express  their  minds  hy  sounds  which  have 
to  our  ears  a  certain  fitness  for  what  they  appear  to  mean. 
It  is  so  with  the  bark,  the  howl,  and  the  whine  of  the  dog, 
the  hissing  of  geese,  the  purring  of  cats,  the  crowing  and 
clucking  of  cocks  and  hens.  But  in  other  cases,  as  with 
the  hooting  of  owls  and  the  shrieks  of  parrots  and  many 
other  birds,  we  cannot  suppose  that  these  sounds  are 
intended  to  utter  anything  like  the  melancholy  or  pain 
which  such  cries  from  a  human  being  would  be  taken  to 
convey.    There  are  many  animals  that  never  utter  any  ciy 

*  Aldrete,  '  Lengua  Gastellana,'  Madrid,  1678,  s.  vv.  karre,  exe. 


r  ; 

i  I 
1 1 

i  I 

II  I 


184 


EMOTIONAL  AND   IMITATIVE  LANQUAOE. 


f 
I'' 

Ijl 

■'l!; 

'Hiiii 
iliiil! 


m 


■  Hill 

'  I'll.' 


but  what,  according  to  our  notions  of  the  meaning  of 
sounds,  would  express  rage  or  discomfort ;  how  far  are  the 
roars  and  howls  of  wild  beasts  to  be  thus  interpreted  ?  We 
might  as  well  imagine  the  tuning  violin  to  be  in  pain,  or 
the  moaning  wind  to  express  sorrow.  The  connexion 
between  inteijection  and  emotion  depending  on  the  physical 
structure  of  the  animal  which  utters  or  hears  the  sound,  it 
follows  that  the  general  similarity  of  interjectional  utter- 
ance among  all  the  varieties  of  the  human  race  is  an 
important  manifestation  of  their  close  physical  and  intel- 
lectual unity. 

Interjectional  sounds  uttered  by  man  for  the  expression 
of  his  own  feelings  serve  also  as  signs  indicating  these 
feelings  to  another.  A  long  list  of  such  interjections, 
common  to  races  speaking  the  most  widely  various  lan- 
guages, might  be  set  down  in  a  rough  way  as  representing 
the  sighs,  groans,  moans,  cries,  shrieks,  and  growls  by 
which  man  gives  utterance  to  various  of  his  feelings.  Such, 
for  instance,  are  some  of  the  many  sounds  for  which  ah ! 
oh!  ahi!  aie!  are  the  inexpressive  written  representatives ; 
such  is  the  sigh  which  is  written  down  in  the  Wolof  lan- 
guage of  Africa  as  hhihhe  !  in  English  as  heigho  !  in  Greek 
and  Latin  as  J  e  /  t  e  /  heu  !  eheu !  Thus  the  open-mouthed 
vjah  ivahl  of  astonishment,  so  common  in  the  East, 
reappears  in  America  in  the  hwah !  htvah-wa !  of  the 
Chinook  Jargon ;  and  the  kind  of  groan  which  is  repre- 
sented in  European  languages  by  weh  I  ouaia  !  ovat .'  vae !  is 
given  in  Coptic  by  ouae  !  in  Galla  by  ^vayo  !  in  the  Ossetic 
of  the  Caucasus  by  voy !  among  the  Indians  of  British 
Columbia  by  ivo'i  !  Where  the  interjections  taken  down  in 
the  vocabularies  of  other  languages  differ  from  those 
recognized  in  our  own,  we  at  any  rate  appreciate  them 
and  see  how  they  carry  their  meaning.  Thus  with  the 
Malagasy  u-u  !  of  pleasure,  the  North  American  Indians 
often  described  guttural  ugh !  the  kwish !  of  contempt 
in  the  Chinook  Jargon,  the  Tunguz  yo  yo !  of  pain,  the 
Irish  ivh  ivb !    of  distress,  the  native  Brazilian's  teh  teh  ! 


M  1  ■ 


,:ii  liiU 


EMOTIONAL  AND   IMITATIVE   LANGUAGE. 


185 


neaning  of 
far  aro  the 
•etcd?  We 
in  pain,  or 
connexion 
he  physical 
te  sound,  it 
onal  utter- 
race  is  an 
i  and  intel- 

expression 

ating  these 

iterjections, 

arious  lan- 

spresenting 

growls   by 

igs.     Such, 

which  ah! 

sentatives ; 

Wolof  lan- 

/  in  Greek 

-mouthed 

the    East, 

of   the 

is  repre- 

/  vae  !  is 

le  Ossetic 

of  British 

n  down  in 

om    those 

iate  them 

with  the 

Indians 

contempt 

pain,  the 

teh  teh  ! 


of  wonder  and  reverence,  the  hai-yah !  so  well  known  in 
the  Pigeon-English  of  the  Chinese  ports,  and  even,  to 
take  an  extreme  case,  the  interjections  of  surprise  among 
the  Algonquin  Indians,  where  men  say  tiaii !  and  women 
nyan  I  It  is  much  the  same  with  expressions  which  aro 
nut  uttered  for  the  speaker's  satisfaction,  but  are  calls 
addressed  to  another.  Thus  the  Siamese  call  of  he !  the 
Hebrew  he !  ha !  for  •  lo  !  behold  I '  the  hdl !  of  the 
Clallam  Indians  for  *  stop  1 '  the  Lummi  hdl !  for  '  hold, 
enough  I ' — these  and  others  like  them  belong  just  as 
much  to  English.  Another  class  of  interjections  are  such 
as  any  one  conversant  with  the  gesture-signs  of  savages 
and  deaf-mutes  would  recognize  as  being  themselves  gesture- 
signs,  made  with  vocal  sound,  in  short,  voice-gestures.  The 
sound  m'tn,  ini'n,  made  with  the  lips  closed,  is  the  obvious 
expression  of  the  man  who  trios  to  speak,  but  cannot. 
Even  the  deaf-and-dumb  child,  though  he  cannot  hear  the 
sound  of  his  own  voice,  makes  this  noise  to  show  that  he 
is  dumb,  that  he  is  vin  mu,  as  the  Vei  negroes  of  West 
Africa  would  say.  To  the  speaking  man,  the  sound 
which  we  write  as  muvi !  says  plainly  enough  '  hold 
your  tongue  ! '  '  mwni's  the  word  I '  and  in  accordance 
with  this  meaning  has  served  to  form  various  imitative 
words,  of  which  a  type  is  Tahitian  mamu,  to  be  silent. 
Often  made  with  a  slight  etfort  which  aspirates  it,  and 
with  more  or  less  continuance,  this  sound  becomes  what 
may  be  indicated  as  'm,  'n,  hni,  Kn,  &c.,  interjections 
which  are  conventionally  written  down  as  words,  hemi! 
ahem  !  hein  !  Their  primary  sense  seems  in  any  case  that 
of  hesitation  to  speak,  of  '  humming  and  hawing,'  but  this 
serves  with  a  varied  intonation  to  express  such  hesitation 
or  refraining  from  articulate  words  as  belongs  either  to 
sui'prise,  doubt  or  enquiry,  approbation  or  contempt.  In 
the  vocabulary  of  the  Yorubas  of  West  Africa,  the  nasal 
interjection  hun  is  rendered,  just  as  it  might  be  in  English, 
as  '  fudge ! '  Rochefort  describes  the  Caribs  listening  in 
reverent  silence  to  their  chief's  discourse,  and   testifying 


-1(1-— 

,:-3 


!"  ! 

( 


186 


EMOTIONAL   AND   IMITATIVE   LANOUAOE. 


^1.: 

;l^l 


'\  iiii 


"illiii;; 


their  approval  with  a  hun-hunf  just  as  in  his  time  (17tl» 
cent.)  an  English  congregation  would  have  saluted  a 
popular  preacher.^  The  gesture  of  blowing,  again,  is  a 
familial'  expression  of  contempt  and  disgust,  and  when 
vocalized  gives  the  labial  interjections  which  are  written 
/mh !  hah !  pugh !  pooh  I  in  Welsh  pw  I  in  Low  Latin 
piippup  I  and  set  down  by  travellers  among  the  savages  in 
/  Australia  as  pooh !  These  interjections  correspond  with 
the  mass  of  imitative  words  which  express  blowing,  such  as 
Malay  jmput,  to  blow.  The  labial  gestures  of  blowing  pass 
into  those  of  spitting,  of  which  one  kind  gives  the  dental 
interjection  t'  V  tl  which  is  written  in  English  or  Dutch 
tut  tut !  and  that  this  is  no  mere  fancy,  a  number  of  imita- 
tive verbs  of  various  countries  will  serve  to  show,  Tahitian 
tiitua,  to  spit,  being  a  typical  instance. 

The  place  of  interjectional  utterance  in  savage  inter- 
course is  well  shown  in  Cranz's  description.  The  Green- 
landers,  he  says,  especially  the  women,  accompany  many 
words  with  mien  and  glances,  and  he  who  does  not  well 
apprehend  this  may  easily  miss  .the  sense.  Thus  when 
they  affirm  anything  with  pleasure  they  suck  down  air  by 
the  throat  with  a  certain  sound,  and  when  they  deny  any- 
thing with  contempt  or  horror,  they  turn  up  the  nose  and 
give  a  slight  sound  through  it.  And  when  they  are  out  of 
humour,  one  must  understand  more  from  their  gestures 
than  their  words."*  Interjection  and  gesture  combine  to 
form  a  tolerable  practical  means  of  intercourse,  as  where 
the  communication  between  French  and  English  troops  in 
the  Crimea   is    described   as  '  consisting  largely  of  such 


j>i:'i  1  III 


'  '  There  prevailed  in  those  days  an  indecent  custom ;  when  the  preacher 
touched  any  favourite  topiclt  in  a  manner  that  delighted  his  audience,  their 
approbation  was  expressed  by  a  loud  hum,  continued  in  proportion  to  their 
zeal  or  pleasure.  When  Burnet  preached,  part  of  his  congregation  hummed 
so  loudly  and  so  long,  that  he  sat  down  to  enjoy  it,  and  rubbed  his  face  with 
his  handkerchief.  When  Sprat  preached,  he  likewise  was  honoured  with 
the  like  animating  hum,  but  he  stretched  out  his  hand  to  the  congregation, 
and  cried,  "  Peace,  peace  ;  I  pray  you,  peace." '    Johnson,  'Life  of  Sprat.' 

»  Cranz,  '  GrOnland,'  p.  279. 


EMOTIONAL   AND   IMITATIVE    LANOUAQR. 


187 


I  time  (17th 

saluted    a 

Eigain,  is   a 

and   whon 

are  written 

Low  Latin 

)  savages  in 

spond  with 

ing,  such  as 

lowing  pass 

i  the  dental 

h  or  Dutch 

»er  of  imita- 

w,  Tahitian 

vage   inter- 

The  Green- 

ipany  many 

•68  not  well 

rhus  when 

own  air  by 

deny  any- 

nose  and 

are  out  of 

ir  gestures 

ombine   to 

as  where 

troops  in 

y  of  such 


the  preaclier 
idience,  their 
1*11011  to  their 
ion  hummed 
his  face  with 
>noured  with 
ongregatioii, 
fe  of  Sprat.' 


inter) cctional  utterances,  reiterated  with  expressive  emphasis 
and  considerable  gesticulation.'  ^  This  description  well 
brings  before  us  in  actual  life  a  system  of  effective  human 
intercourse,  in  which  there  has  not  yet  arisen  the  use  of 
those  articulate  sounds  carrying  their  meaning  by  tradition, 
which  are  the  inherited  words  of  the  dictionary. 

When,  however,  wo  look  closely  into  these  inherited 
sense-words  themselves,  we  find  that  interjectional  sounds 
have  actually  had  more  or  less  share  in  their  formation. 
Not  stopping  short  at  the  function  ascribed  to  them  by 
grammarians,  of  standing  here  and  there  outside  a  logical 
sentence,  the  interjections  have  also  served  as  radical' 
sounds  out  of  which  verbs,  substantives,  and  other  parts  of 
speech  have  been  shaped.  In  tracing  the  progress  of  inter- 
jections upward  into  fully  developed  language,  we  begin 
with  sounds  merely  expressing  the  speaker's  actual  feelings. 
When,  however,  expressive  sounds  like  uhf  uijh! pooh!  are 
uttered  not  to  exhibit  the  speakex*'s  actual  feelings  at  the 
moment,  but  only  in  order  to  suggest  to  another  the 
thought  of  admiration  or  disgust,  then  such  interjections 
have  little  or  nothing  to  distinguish  them  from  fully  formed 
words.  The  next  stop  is  to  trace  the  taking  up  of  such 
sounds  into  the  regular  forms  of  ordinary  grammar. 
Familiar  instances  of  such  formations  may  be  found  among 
ourselves  in  nursery  language,  where  to  \voh  is  found  in  use 
with  the  meaning  of  to  stop,  or  in  that  real  though  hardly 
acknowledged  part  of  the  English  language  to  which  belong 
such  verbs  as  to  hoo-hoo.  Among  the  most  obvious  of 
such  words  are  those  which  denote  the  actual  utterance  of 
an  interjection,  or  pass  thence  into  some  closely  allied 
meaning.  Thus  the  Fijian  women's  cry  of  lamentation 
o^lle !  becomes  the  verb  oile  '  to  bewail,'  oile-taka  '  to 
lament  for'  (the  men  cry  ule!);  now  this  is  in  perfect 
analogy  with  such  words  as  ululare,  to  wail.  With  different 
grammatical  terminations,  another  sound  produces  the 
Zulu  verb  gigiteka  and  its  English  equivalent  to  giggle. 
'  D.  Wilson,  'Prehistoric  Man,'  p.  65. 


"1*1. 
'lb 


188 


EMOTIONAL  AND  IMITATIVE   LANGUAGE. 


\%m 

w. 

s 

h;^ 

ijii 


8*111 


rilil 


'"lHllli 

•'■iljllli 


!ili! 


.i|!|i 


The  Galla  iya,  'to  cry,  scream,  give  the  battle-cry'  has 
its  analogues  in  Greek  Id,  li^,  '  a  cry,'  i?jios  '  wailing, 
mournful,'  &c.  Good  cases  may  be  taken  from  a  curious 
modem  dialect  with  a  strong  propensity  to  the  use  of 
obvious  sound-words,  the  Chinook  Jargon  of  North- West 
America.  Here  we  find  adopted  from  an  Indian  dialect 
the  verb  to  Icish-klsh,  that  is,  '  to  drive  cattle  or  horses ' ; 
humm  stands  for  the  word  '  stink,'  verb  or  noun ;  and  the 
laugh,  keehee,  becomes  a  recognized  term  meaning  fun  or 
amusement,  as  in  onamook  heehee,  '  to  amuse '  {i.  e.,  '  to 
make  heehee ')  and  heehee  house,  '  a  tavern.'  In  Hawaii, 
aa  is  '  to  insult ; '  in  the  Tonga  Islands,  'ui !  is  at  once 
the  exclamation  '  fie  1 '  and  the  verb  '  to  cry  out  against.' 
In  New  Zealand,  M!  is  an  interjection  denoting  surprise  at 
a  mistake,  he  as  a  noun  or  verb  meaning  '  error,  mistake, 
to  err,  to  go  astray.'  In  the  Quiche  language  of  Guate- 
mala, the  verbs  ay,  oy,  boy,  express  the  idea  of  '  to  call  * 
in  different  ways.  In  the  Carajas  language  of  Brazil,  we 
may  guess  an  interjectional  origin  in  the  adjective  ei, 
'  sorrowful,'  and  can  scarcely  fail  to  see  a  derivation  from 
expressive  sound  in  the  verb  hai-hai  '  to  run  away '  (the 
word  aie-aie,  used  to  mean  '  an  omnibus '  in  modern 
French  slang,  is  said  to  be  a  comic  allusion  to  the  cries 
of  the  passengers  whose  toes  are  trodden  on).  The  Camacan 
Indians,  when  they  wish  to  express  the  notion  of  '  much ' 
or  '  many,'  hold  out  their  fingers  and  say  hi.  As  this  is 
an  ordinary  savage  gesture  expressing  multitude,  it  seems 
likely  that  the  hi  is  a  mere  interjection,  requiring  the 
visible  sign  to  convey  the  full  meaning.^  In  the  Quichua 
language  of  Peru,  alalauf  is  an  interjection  of  complaint  at 
cold,  whence  the  verb  alalaufiini,  '  to  complain  of  the 
cold.'  At  the  end  of  each  strophe  of  the  Peruvian  hymns 
to  the  Sun  was  sung  the  triumphant  exclamation  haylU! 
and  with  this  sound  are  connected  the  verbs  haylUni 
'to  sing,'  hayllicuni,  'to  celebrate  a  victory.'     The  Zulu 

'  Compare,  in  the  same  district,  Came  ii,  Cutoxd  hiehie,  euhicihid,  multus, 
-a,  -um. 


i::>:i,      .K 


le-cry'  has 
s  *  wailing, 
Q  a  curious 
the  use   of 
STorth-West 
ian  dialect 
)r  horses ' ; 
n ;  and  the 
ling  fun  or 
'  {i.e.,  'to 
[n  Hawaii, 
is  at  once 
it  against.' 
surprise  at 
>T,  mistake, 
of  Guate- 
f  '  to  call ' 
Brazil,  we 
Jjeetive  ei, 
ition  from 
Lway'  (the 
n   modern 

the  cries 

Camacan 
much ' 
A.S  this  is 
i,  it  seems 
liring  the 

Quichua 
Qplaint  at 
in  of  the 
in  hvmns 
n  haylll! 

hayllini 
The  Zulu 

hiii,  multus. 


jf 


EMOTIONAL  AND  IMITATIVE  LANGUAGE. 


180 


halala  !  of  exultation,  which  becomes  also  a  verb  '  to  shout 
for  joy,'  has  its  analogues  in  the  Tibetan  alala !  of  joy, 
and  the  Greek  d\aAa,  which  is  used  as  a  noun  meaning  the 
battle-cry  and  even  the  onset  itself,  aAaAafw,  '  to  raise  the 
war-cry,'  as  well  as  Hebrew  hillel, '  to  sing  praise,'  whence 
hallelujah  I  a  word  which  the  believers  in  the  theory  that 
the  Red  Indians  were  the  Lost  Tribes  naturally  recognized 
in  the  native  medicine-man's  chant  of  hi-le-li-lah  !  The  Zulu 
makes  his  panting  ha  !  do  duty  as  an  expression  of  heat, 
when  he  says  that  the  hot  weather  '  says  ha  ha ' ;  his  way  of 
pitching  a  song  by  a  ha  !  ha  !  is  apparently  represented  in 
the  verb  haya,  '  to  lead  a  song,'  hayo  '  a  starting  song,  a 
fee  given  to  the  singing-leader  for  the  haya ' ;  and  his 
interjectional  expression  hd,  bd  !  '  as  vhen  one  smacks  his 
lips  from  a  bitter  taste,'  becomes  a  verb-root  meaning  'to 
be  bitter  or  sharp  to  the  taste,  to  prick,  to  smart.'  The 
Galla  language  gives  some  good  examples  of  interjections 
passing  into  words,  as  where  the  verbs  hirr-djeda  (to  say 
6n' .')  and  birefada  (to  make  brr  !)  have  the  meaning  '  to  be 
afraid.'  Thus  o  !  being  the  usual  answer  to  a  call,  and 
also  a  cry  to  drive  cattle,  there  are  formed  from  it  by 
the  addition  of  verbal  terminations,  the  verbs  oada,  '  to 
answer,'  and  ofa,  '  to  drive.' 

If  the  magnific  and  honorific  o  of  Japanese  grammar  can 
be  assigned  to  an  interjectional  origin,  its  capabilities  in 
modifying  signification  become  instructive.^  It  is  used 
before  substantives  as  a  prefix  of  honour ;  couni,  '  country,' 
thus  becoming  ocouni.  When  a  man  is  talking  to  his 
superiors,  he  puts  o  before  the  names  of  all  objects  belonging 
to  them,  while  these  superiors  drop  the  o  in  speaking  of 
anything  of  their  own,  or  an  inferior's  ;  among  the  higher 

•  J.  H.  Donker  Curtius,  'Essai  de  Grammaire  Japonaiso,'  p.  34,  &c. 
199.  In  former  editions  of  the  present  work,  the  directly  interjectional 
character  of  the  o  is  hold  in  an  unqualified  manner.  Reference  to  the 
grammars  of  Prof.  B.  H.  Chamberlain  and  others,  where  this  particle 
(.on,  o)  is  connected  with  other  forms  implying  a  common  I'oot,  leaves  the 
argument  to  depend  wholly  or  partly  on  the  supposition  of  an  interjec- 
tional source  for  this  root.     [Note  to  3rd  ed,] 


t  ,■' 


!i,^ 


11! 
5 


190 


EMOTIONAL  AND  IMITATIVE   LANGUAGE. 


classes,  persons  of  equal  rank  put  o  before  the  names  of 
each  other's  things,  but  not  before  their  own ;  it  is  polite 
to  say  0  before  the  names  of  all  women,  and  well-bred 
children  are  distinguished  from  little  peasants  by  the 
way  in  which  they  are  careful  to  put  it  even  before  the 
nursery  names  of  father  and  mother,  o  toto,  o  coca,  which 
correspond  to  the  papa  and  Ttufnia  of  Europe.  A  dis- 
tinction is  made  in  written  language  between  o,  which  is  put 
to  anything  royal,  and  oo  which  means  great,  as  may  be 
instanced  in  the  use  of  the  word  metsM,  or  '  spy '  (literally 
'  eye-fixer ') ;  o  tneta'kd  is  a  princely  or  imperial  spy,  while 
00  mets'k^  is  the  spy  in  chief.  This  interjectional  adjective 
00,  great,  is  usually  prefixed  to  the  name  of  the  capital 
city,  which  it  is  customary  to  call  oo  Yedo  in  speaking  to 
one  of  its  inhabitants,  or  when  officials  talk  of  it  among 
themselves.  And  lastly,  the  o  of  honour  is  prefixed  to 
verbs  in  all  their  forms  of  conjugation,  and  it  is  polite 
to  say  ominahai  matse,  'please  to  see,'  instead  of  the 
mere  plebeian  miTiahai  Tnatse.  Now  an  English  child  of 
six  years  old  would  at  once  understand  these  formations 
if  taken  as  interjectional ;  and  if  we  do  not  incorporate 
in  our  grammar  the  o  f  of  admiration  and  reveren- 
tial embarrassment,  it  is  bficause  we  have  not  chosen 
to  take  advantage  of  this  rudimentary  means  of  ex- 
pression. Another  exclaniation,  the  cry  of  io  !  has  taken 
a  place  in  etymology.  When  added  by  the  German  to 
his  cry  of  '  Fire ! '  '  Murder  1 '  Feuerio !  Mordio !  it 
remains  indeed  as  mere  an  interjection  as  the  o!  in  our 
street  cries  of  'Pease-o/'  'Dust-o.''  or  the  d!  in  old 
German  wafend!  'to  arms!'  hilfdf  'help!'  But  the 
Iroquois  of  North  America  makes  a  fuller  use  of  his 
materials,  and  carries  his  io  !  of  admiration  into  the  very 
formation  of  compound  words,  adding  it  to  a  noun  to  say 
that  it  is  beautiful  or  good :  thus,  in  Mohawk,  garonta 
means  a  tree,  garontio  a  beautiful  tree ;  in  like  manner, 
Ohio  means  '  river-beautiful : '  and  Ontario,  '  hill-rock- 
beautiful,'  is  derived  in  the  same  way.     When,  in  the  old 


EMOTIONAV,    IND  IMITATIVE  LANGUAGE, 


191 


e  names  of 
it  is  polite 
i  well-bred 
its    by  the 
before  the 
mca,  which 
36.    A  dis- 
vhich  is  put 
as  may  be 
y '  (literally 
I  spy,  while 
al  adjective 
the  capital 
speaking  to 
if  it  among 
prefixed  to 
it  is  polite 
ead  of  the 
sh  child  of 
formations 
Incorporate 
i    reveren- 
lot  chosen 
ms    of  ex- 
has  taken 
German  to 
ordio !    it 
/  in  our 
/  in  old 
But    the 
use   of  his 
the  very 
un  to  say 
garonta 
manner, 
hill-rock- 
In  the  old 


times  of  the  French  occupation  of  Canada,  there  was  sent 
over  a  Governor- General  of  New  France,  Monsieur  de 
Montmagny,  the  Iroquois  rendered  his  name  from  their 
word  ononte,  '  mountain,'  translating  him  into  Onontio,  or 
'  Great  Mountain,'  and  thus  it  came  to  pass  that  the  name 
of  Onontio  was  handed  down  long  after,  like  that  of  Caesar, 
as  the  title  of  each  succeeding  governor,  while  for  the  King 
of  France  was  reserved  the  yet  higher  style  of  '  the  great 
Onontio.'  ^ 

The  quest  of  interjectional  derivations  for  sense-words  is 
apt  to  lead  the  etymologist  into  very  rash  speculations. 
One  of  his  best  safeguards  is  to  test  forms  supposed  to  be 
interjectional,  by  ascertaining  whether  anything  similar  has 
come  into  use  in  decidedly  distinct  languages.  For  instance, 
among  the  familiar  sounds  which  fall  on  the  traveller's  ear 
in  Spain  is  the  muleteer's  cry  to  his  beasts,  arre  /  arre  / 
From  this  interjection,  a  family  of  Spanish  words  are 
reasonably  supposed  to  be  derived ;  the  verb  arrear,  '  to 
drive  mules,'  arriero,  the  name  for  the  'muleteer'  him- 
self, and  so  forth.^  Now  is  this  arre  !  itself  a  genuine 
interjectional  sound  ?  It  seems  likely  to  be  so.  for  Captain 
Wilson  found  it  in  use  in  the  Pelew  Islands,  where  the 
paddlers  in  the  canoes  were  kept  up  to  their  work  by  crying 
to  them  arree !  arree !  Similar  interjections  are  noticed 
elsewhere  with  a  sense  of  mere  affirmation,  as  in  an  Aus- 
tralian dialect  where  a-ree !  is  set  down  as  meaning 
'  indeed,'  and  in  the  Quichua  language  where  ari  !  means 
'  yes ! '  whence  the  verb  arini,  '  to  affirm.'  Two  other 
cautions  are  desirable  in  such  enquiries.  These  are,  not  to 
travel  too  far  from  the  absolute  meaning  expressed  by  the 
interjection,  unless  there  is  strong  corroborative  evidence, 


*  Bruyas,  'Mohawk  Lang.' p.  16,  inSmithson.  Contr.  vol.  iii.  Schoolcraft. 
'  Indian  Tribes,'  Part  iii.  p.  328,  502,  507.  Charlevoix,  'Nouv.  France.' 
vol.  i.  p.  350. 

'  The  arre !  may  have  been  introduced  into  Europe  by  the  Moors,  as  it  is 
used  in  Arabic,  and  its  use  in  Europe  corresponds  nearly  with  the  limits 
of  the  Moorish  conquest,  in  Spain  arre !  in  Provence  arri ' 


:'i 


m 


" 


I  SI 

li 


..       J 


■>^IP^ 


m. 


192 


EMOTIONAL  AND  IMITATIVE  LANGUAGE. 


/ 


and  not  to  override  ordinary  etymology  by  treating  deri- 
vative words  as  though  they  were  radical.  Without  these 
checks,  even  sound  principle  breaks  down  in  application,  as 
the  following  two  examples  may  show.  It  is  quite  true  that 
Ktii !  is  a  common  inter) ectional  call,  and  that  the  Dutch 
have  made  a  verb  of  it,  hemmen, '  to  hem  after  a  person.' 
We  may  notice  a  similar  call  in  West  Africa,  in  the  mma  ! 
which  is  translated  •  hallo !  stop ! '  in  the  language  of 
Fernando  Po.  But  to  apply  this  as  a  derivation  for  German 
hemmen,  '  to  stop,  check,  restrain,'  to  hem  in,  and  even  to 
the  hem  of  a  garment,  as  Mr  Wedgwood  does  without  even 
a  perhaps,^  is  travelling  too  far  beyond  the  record.  Again, 
it  is  quite  true  that  sounds  of  clicking  and  smacking  of  the 
lips  are  common  expressions  of  satisfaction  all  over  the 
world,  and  words  may  be  derived  from  these  sounds,  as 
where  a  vocabulary  of  the  Chinook  language  of  North- West 
America  expresses  '  good '  as  tlc-tok-te,  or  e-tok-te,  sounds 
which  we  cannot  doubt  to  be  derived  from  such  clicking 
noises,  if  the  words  are  not  in  fact  attempts  to  write  down 
the  very  clicks  themselves.  But  it  does  not  follow  that  we 
may  take  such  words  as  delicioi,  delieatus,  out  of  a  highly 
organized  language  like  Latin,  and  refer  them,  as  the  same 
etymologist  does,  to  an  interj  ectional  utterance  of  satisfac- 
tion, dlickP  To  do  this,  is  to  ignore  altogether  the  compo- 
sition of  words ;  we  might  as  woU  explain  Latin  diledus 
or  English  delight  as  direct  formations  from  expressive 
sound.  In  concluding  these  remarks  on  interjections,  two 
or  three  groups  of  words  may  be  brought  forward  as 
examples  of  the  application  of  collected  evidence  from  a 
number  of  languages,  mostly  of  the  lower  races. 

The  affirmative  and  negative  particles,  which  bear  in  lan- 
guage such  meanings  as  •  yes ! '  '  indeed  ! '  and  '  no  1 ' 
'  not,'  may  have  their  derivations  from  many  different 
sources.  It  is  thought  that  the  Australian  dialects  all 
belong  to  a  single  stock,  but  so  unlike  are  the  sounds  they 

'  Wedgwood,  '  Origin  of  Language,'  p.  92. 
»  Ibid.,  p.  72. 


•liiui 


EMOTIONAL   AND    IMITATIVE    LANGUAGE. 


193 


sating  deri- 
thoiit  these 
jlication,  as 
te  true  that 
the  Dutch 
'  a  person.' 
.  the  mma  ! 
mguage   of 
for  German 
md  even  to 
ithout  even 
rd.     Again, 
sking  of  the 
11  over  the 
sounds,  as 
North-West 
k-te,  sounds 
ich  clicking 
iwrite  down 
ow  that  we 
)f  a  highly 
IS  the  same 
of  satisfac- 
the  compo- 
in  diledus 
expressive 
lotions,  two 
Forward  as 
ice  from  a 

)ear  in  lan- 
lind  '  no ! ' 
different 
lialects  all 
funds  they 


use  for  '  no  ! '  and  '  yes  ! '  that  tribes  are  actually  named 
from  these  words  as  a  convenient  means  of  distinction. 
Thus  the  tribes  known  as  Gureang,  Kaviilaroi,  Kogai, 
Wolaroi,  Wailivun,  Wiratherut,  have  their  names  from  the 
words  they  use  for  'no,'  these  being  gure,  kamil,  ko, 
wol,  wail,  wira,  respectively ;  and  on  the  other  hand  the 
PikaTnbul  are  said  to  be  so  called  from  their  word  pika, 
'  yes.'  The  device  of  naming  tribes,  thus  invented  by  the 
savages  of  Australia,  and  which  perhaps  recurs  in  Brazil  in 
the  name  of  the  Cocatapuya  ti'ibe  (coca '  no,'  tapuya '  man ') 
is  very  curious  in  its  similarity  to  the  mediaeval  division  of 
La%,gue  d'oc  and  Langue  cVo'il,  according  to  the  words  for 
'  yes  I '  which  prevailed  in  Southern  and  Northern  France : 
ocf  is  Latin  hoc,  as  we  might  say  'that's  it!'  while  the 
longer  form  hoc  illud  was  reduced  to  oil !  and  thence  to 
oui  !  Many  other  of  the  words  for  '  yes ! '  and  '  no ! '  may 
be  sense-words,  as,  again,  the  French  and  Italian  si  !  is  Latin 
sic.  But  on  the  other  hand  there  is  reason  to  think  that 
many  of  these  particles  in  use  in  various  languages  are  not 
sense-words,  but  sound-words  of  a  purely  interjectional 
kind  ;  or,  what  comes  nearly  to  the  same  thing,  a  feeling  of 
fitness  of  the  sound  to  the  meaning  may  have  affected  the 
choice  and  shaping  of  sense-words — a  remark  of  large  appli- 
cation in  such  enquiries  as  the  present.  It  is  an  old 
suggestion  that  the  primitive  sound  of  such  words  as  non  is 
a  nasal  interjection  of  doubt  or  dissent.^  It  corresponds  in 
sound  with  the  visible  gesture  of  closing  the  lips,  while  a 
vowel-interjection,  with  or  without  aspiration,  belongs 
rather  to  open-mouthed  utterance.  Whether  from  this  or 
some  other  cause,  there  is  a  remarkable  tendency  among 
most  distant  and  various  languages  of  the  world,  on  the  one 
hand  to  use  vowel-sounds,  with  soft  or  hard  breathing,  to 
express  'yes!'  and  on  the  other  hand  to  use  nasal  con- 
sonants to  express  'no!'  The  affirmative  form  is  much 
the  commoner.  The  guttural  i-i !  of  the  West  Australian, 
the  ee!  of  the  Darien,  the  a-ah  .'of  the  Clallam,  the  ^!  of 


ml 


m\ 


u 


lis; 


'  De  Brosses,  vol,  i,  p.  20-3.    Sco  Wedgwood. 


VOL.  I. 


iillill 


/ 


194 


EMOTIONAL  AND  IMITATIVE   LANGUAGE. 


the  Yakama  Indians^  the  e !  of  the  Basuto,  and  the  ai  !  of 
the  Kanuri,  are  some  examples  of  a  wide  group  of  forms, 
of  which  the  following  are  only  part  of  those  noted  down  in 
Polynesian  and  South  American  districts — ii!  4!  ia! 
aio  /  io  !  ya  !  ey  !  &c.,  K!  heJi !  he-e  !  hil !  hoehah  !  ah-ha  ! 
&c.  The  idea  has  most  weight  where  pairs  of  words  for 
'  yes ! '  and  '  no ! '  are  found  both  conforming.  Thus  in 
the  very  suggestive  description  by  Dobrizhoffer  among  the 
Abipones  of  South  America,  for  '  yes ! '  the  men  and 
youths  say  M4 !  the  women  say  had!  and  the  old  men 
give  a  grunt ;  while  for  '  no '  they  all  say  yna  !  and  make 
the  loudness  of  the  sound  indicate  the  strength  of  the 
negation.  Dr.  Martius's  collection  of  vocabularies  of 
Brazilian  tribes,  philologically  very  distinct,  contains  several 
such  pairs  of  affirmatives  and  negatives,  the  equivalents  of 
'  yes ! ' — '  no ! '  being  in  Tupi  aye — aan  !  aani  !  ;  in  Guato 
ii ! — ma'ii !  ;  in  Jumana,  aeae  ! — mdlii ! :  in  Miranha  ha  ti .' 
— nani!  The  Quichua  of  Peru  affirms  by  y!  huf  and 
expresses  '  no,'  '  not,'  '  not  at  all,'  by  ama  !  rtianan  !  &c., 
making  from  the  latter  the  verb  Ttianamni,  'to  deny.' 
The  Quiche  of  Guatemala  has  e  or  ve  for  the  affirmative,  ma, 
man,  mana,  for  the  negative.  In  Africa,  again,  the  Galla 
language  has  ee!  for  'yes!'  and  hn,  hin,  hm,  for 'not!'; 
the  Fernandian  ee  !  for  '  yes ! '  and  'nt  for  '  not ; '  while  the 
Coptic  dictionary  gives  the  affirmative  (Latin  '  sane ')  as 
eie,  ie,  and  the  negative  by  a  long  list  of  nasal  sounds  such 
as  an,  emmen,  en,  mmn,  &c.  The  Sanskrit  particles  hi! 
*  indeed,  certainly,'  na,  '  not,'  exemplify  similar  forms  in 
Indo-European  language8,down  to  our  own  aye!  and  no!^ 
There  must  be  some  meaning  in  all  this,  for  otherwise  I 
could  hardly  have  noted  down  incidentally,  without  making 
any  attempt  at  a  general  search,  so  many  cases  from  such 
different  languages,  only  finding  a  comparatively  small 
number  of  contradictory  cases.^ 


'  AlsoOraonAoe — amho;  Micmac  e— wiw. 

'  A  double  contradiction  in  Carib  aniian  '.  -  '  yes  ! '  oua .'  = '  no ! '  Single 
contradictions  in  Gatoquina  hang  t  Tupi  eem !  Botocudo  hemhem !  Yoruba 


the  ai !  of 

)  of  forms, 

ed  down  in 

:/    4!   ia! 

ih  !  ah-ha  f 

'  words  for 

,    Thus  in 

among  the 

men   and 

le  old  men 

and  make 

igth  of  the 

jularies    of 

lins  several 

livalents  of 

;  in  Guato 

anha  ha  "A  ! 

'  huf  and 

man  !  &c., 

'to  deny.* 

ative,  ma, 

the  Galla 

Ifor'not!'; 

while  the 

'sane')  as 

unds  such 

Irticles  hi! 

foims  in 

and  no!^ 

iherwise  I 

t  making 

Tom  such 

ely  small 


Ino!'  Single 
em!  Yoruba 


*■ 


EMOTIONAL  AND  IMITATIVE   LANGUAGE. 


195 


De  Brosses  maintained  that  the  Latin  stare,  to  stand, 
might  be  traced  to  an  origin  in  expressive  sound.  He 
fancied  he  could  hear  in  it  an  organic  radical  sign  desig- 
nating fixity,  and  could  thus  explain  why  st !  should  be  used 
as  a  call  to  make  a  man  stand  still.  Its  connexion  with 
these  sounds  is  often  spoken  of  in  more  modem  books,  and 
one  imaginative  German  philologer  describes  their  origin 
among  primaeval  men  as  vividly  as  though  he  had  been 
there  to  see.  A  man  stands  beckoning  in  vain  to  a  com- 
panion who  does  not  see  him,  till  at  last  his  effort  relieves 
itself  by  the  help  of  the  vocal  nerves,  and  involuntarily  there 
breaks  from  him  the  sound  st !  Now  the  other  hears  the 
sound,  turns  toward  it,  sees  the  beckoning  gesture,  knows 
that  he  is  called  to  stop ;  and  when  this  has  happened 
again  and  again,  the  action  comes  to  be  described  in  com- 
mon talk  by  uttering  the  now  familiar  st !  and  thus  sta 
becomes  a  root,  the  symbol  of  the  abstract  idea  to  stand !  ^ 
This  is  a  most  ingenious  conjecture,  but  unfortunately 
nothing  more.  It  would  be  at  any  rate  strengthened,  though 
not  established,  if  its  supporters  could  prove  that  the 
st !  used  to  call  people  in  Germany,  pst !  in  Spain,  is 
itself  a  pure  interjectional  sound.  Even  this,  however,  has 
never  been  made  out.  The  call  has  not  yet  been  shown  to 
bo  in  use  outside  our  own  Indo-European  family  of 
languages  ;  and  so  long  as  it  is  only  found  in  use  within 
these  limits,  an  opponent  might  even  plausibly  claim  it  as 
an  abbreviation  of  the  very  sta  !  ('  stay !  stop! ')  for  which 
the  theory  proposes  it  as  an  origin.*^ 

en !  for  '  yes ! '  Culino  aiy !  Australian  yo !  for  '  no  ! '  &c.  How  much 
these  sounds  depend  on  peculiar  intonation,  we,  who  habitually  use  h'm ! 
either  for  *  yes  I '  or  '  no  I '  can  well  understand. 

■  (Charles  de  Brosses)  'Traite  de  la  Formation  Miicanique  des 
Langues,  &c.'  Paris,  An.  ix.,  vol.  i.  p.  238 ;  vol.  ii.  p.  313.  Lazarus  and 
Steinthal,  'Zeitschrift  fur  VOlkerpsychologio,'  &c.,  vol.  i.  p.  421.  Heyso, 
'System der  Sprachwissenschaft,'  p.  73.  Farrar,  ' Chapters  on  Language,' 
p.  202. 

*  Similar  sounds  are  used  to  command  silence,  to  stop  speaking  as  well 
as  to  stop  going.  English  husht  I  whist !  hist !  Welsh  ust !  French  chut ! 
Italian  ziiio  i  Swedish  tyst  I  Russian  st'  I  and  the  Latin  st !  so  well  described 

O  2 


/ 


■NM» 


196 


EMOTIONAL   AND  IMITATIVE   LANOUAOE. 


fr';y    ■■  '><[ 


/, 


That  it  is  not  unfair  to  ask  for  fuller  evidence  of  a 
sound  being  purely  interjectional  than  its  appearance  in  a 
single  family  of  languages,  may  be  shown  by  examining 
another  group  of  interjections,  which  are  found  among  the 
remotest  tribes,  and  thus  have  really  considerable  claims  to 
rank  among  the  primary  sounds  of  language.  These  are 
the  simple  sibilants,  s  f  sh  !  h'sh  !  used  especially  to  scare 
birds,  and  among  men  to  express  aversion  or  call  for  silence. 
Catlin  describes  a  party  of  Sioux  Indians,  when  they  came 
to  the  portrait  of  a  dead  chief,  each  putting  his  hand  over 
his  mouth  with  a  hush-uli ;  and  when  he  himself  wished  to 
approach  the  sacred  '  medicine '  in  a  Mandan  lodge,  he 
was  called  to  refrain  by  the  same  hush-sh  f  Among  our- 
selves the  sibilant  interjection  passes  into  two  exactly 
opposite  senses,  according  as  it  is  meant  to  put  the  speaker 
himself  to  silence,  or  to  command  silence  for  him  to  be 
heard  ;  and  thus  we  find  the  sibilant  used  elsewhere,  some- 
times in  the  one  way  and  sometimes  in  the  other.  Among 
the  wild  Veddas  of  Ceylon,  iss !  is  an  exclamation  of 
disapproval,  as  in  ancient  or  modem  Europe  ;  and  the  verb 
shdrak,  to  hiss,  is  used  in  Hebrew  with  a  like  sense, 
'  they  shall  hiss  him  out  of  his  place.'  But  in  Japan 
reverence  is  expressed  by  a  hiss,  commanding  silence. 
Captain  Cook  remarked  that  the  natives  of  the  New 
Hebrides  expressed  their  admiration  by  hissing  like  geese. 
Casalis  says  of  the  Basutos,  'Hisses  are  the  most  un- 
equivocal marks  of  applause,  and  are  as  much  courted  in 
the  African  parliaments  as  they  are  dreaded  by  our  candi- 
dates for  popular  favour.'^  Among  other  sibilant  interjec- 
tions,  are    Turkish    s'Asd  !    Ossetic    88 !    808  !    '  silence ! ' 


in  the  curious  old  line  quoted  by  Mr.  Farrar,  which  compares  it  with  the 
gesture  of  the  finger  on  the  lips  : — 

'  Isis,  et  Harpocrates  digito  qui  significat  st  I ' 
This  group  of  interjections,  again,  has  not  been  proved  to  be  in  use  outside 
Aryan  limits. 

1  Catlin,  '  North  American  Indians,'  vol.  i.  pp.  221, 89, 151, 162.  Bailey 
in  'Tr.  Eth.  Soc.,'  vol.  ii.  p.  318.  Job  xxvii.  23.  (The  verb  shdrak  also 
signifies  to  call  by  a  hiss,  '  and  he  will  hiss  unto  them  from  the  end  of  tht 


ience  of  a 
xance  in  a 
examining 
among  the 
ie  claims  to 
These  are 
lly  to  scare 
for  silence. 
L  they  came 
I  hand  over 
if  wished  to 
n  lodge,  he 
Lmong  our- 
wo  exactly 
the  speaker 
■  him  to  be 
rhere,  some- 
er.    Among 
amation  of 
,nd  the  verb 
like   sense, 
in  Japan 
ng  silence, 
the   New 
ike  geese, 
most  un- 
courted  in 
our  candi- 
nt  interjec- 
silence ! ' 

BS  it  with  tho 

in  use  outside 

,162.  Bailey 
b  shdrak  also 
;he  end  of  tlit 


EMOTIONAL   AND  IMITATIVE   LANQUAQE. 


197 


Fernandian  tria  /  '  listen ! '  '  tush  ! '  Yoruba  dd  !  *  pshaw  1  * 
Thus  it  appears  that  these  sounds,  far  from  being  special  to 
one  linguistic  family,  are  very  wide-spread  elements  of 
human  speech.  Nor  is  there  any  question  as  to  their 
passage  into  fully-formed  words,  as  in  our  verb  to  hush, 
which  has  passed  into  the  sense  of  '  to  quiet,  put  to  sleep  ' 
(adjectively, '  as  hush  as  death '),  metaphorically  to  hush  up 
a  matter,  or  Qreek  (ti^w  <to  hush,  say  hush!  command 
silence.'  Even  Latin  sllere  and  Gothic  silan, '  to  be  silent,' 
may  with  some  plausibility  be  explained  as  derived  from  the 
interjectional  «  /  of  silence. 

Sanskrit  dictionaries  recognize  several  words  which  ex- 
plicitly state  their  own  interjectional  derivation ;  such  are 
hili'ikdru  {hdm-m&kmg),  '  the  utterance  of  the  mystic 
religious  exclamation  hilm  ! '  and  f^l^^abda  (^i^-sound),  '  a 
hiss.'  Besides  these  obvious  formations,  the  interjectional 
element  is  present  to  some  greater  or  less  degree  in  the  list  of 
Sanskrit  radicals,  which  represent  probably  better  than  those 
of  any  other  language  the  verb-roots  of  the  ancient  Aryan 
stock.  In  m, '  to  roar,  cry,  wail,'  and  in  hakh, '  to  laugh,' 
we  have  the  simpler  kind  of  inteijectional  derivation,  that 
which  merely  describes  a  sound.  As  to  the  more  difficult 
kind,  which  cany  the  sense  into  a  new  stage,  Mr.  Wedgwood 
makes  out  a  strong  case  for  the  connexion  of  interjections 
of  loathing  and  aversion,  such  as  pooh  !  fie  !  &c.,  with  that 
large  group  of  words  which  are  represented  in  English  by 
foul  and  fiend,  in  Sanskrit  by  the  vei'bs  p'^y, '  to  become 
foul,  to  stink,'  and  piy,  piy,  '  to  revile,  to  hate.'  ^     Further 


earth,  and  behold,  they  shall  come  with  speed,'  Is.  v.  26 ;  Jer.  xix.  6.) 
Alcock,  'The  Capital  of  the  Tycoon,'  vol.  i.  p.  894.  Cook,  '2nd  Voy.' 
vol.  ii.  p.  86.     Casalis,  '  Basutos,'  p,  234. 

'  Wedgwood, '  Origin  of  Language,'  p.  83,  '  Dictionary,'  Introd.  p.  xlix. 
and  8.  V. '  foul.'  Prof.  Max  MUller,  '  Lectures,'  2nd  series,  p.  02,  protests 
against  the  indiscriminate  derivation  of  words  directly  from  such  cries  and 
interjections,  without  the  intervention  of  determinate  roots.  As  to  the 
present  topic,  he  points  out  that  Latin  pus,  putridun,  Gothic  fids,  English 
foul,  follow  Grimm's  law  as  if  words  derived  from  a  single  root.  Admitting 
this,  however,  the  question  has  to  be  raised,  how  far  pure  interjec- 
tions and  their  direct  derivatives,  being  self-expressive  and  so  to  speak 


.7* 

i  I*' 


198 


EMOTIONAL   AND   IMITATIVK  LANGUAOB. 


ft.  -i'  ■ 


P 


evidence  may  be  here  adduced  in  support  of  this  theory . 
The  languages  of  the  lower  races  use  the  sound  ^  to 
express  an  evil  smell ;  the  Zulu  remarks  that  '  the  meat 
says  pu '  (inyama  iti  pu),  meaning  that  it  stinks ;  the 
Timorese  has  poop  '  putrid ; '  the  Quiche  language  has 
jnth,  poh  '  corruption,  pus/  po?iir  '  to  turn  bad,  rot,'  puz 
'  rottenness,  what  stinks ; '  the  Tupi  word  for  nasty,  puxi, 
may  be  compared  with  the  Latin  putidua,  and  the  Columbia 
River  name  for  the '  skunk,'  o-pun-pun,  with  similar  names 
of  stinking  animals,  S&nBkrit pdtikd '  civet-cat,'  and  French 
putoia  •  pole-cat.'  From  the  French  inteijection  fi  !  words 
have  long  been  formed  belonging  to  the  language,  if  not 
authenticated  by  the  Academy ;  in  mediseval  French '  maistre 
fi-fi '  was  a  recognized  term  for  a  scavenger,  and  fi-Ji  books 
are  not  yet  extinct. 

There  has  been  as  yet,  unfortunately,  too  much  separa- 
tion between  vrhat  maybe  called  generative  philology,  which 
examines  into  the  ultimate  oiigins  of  words,  and  historical 
philology,  which  traces  their  transmission  and  change.  It 
will  be  a  great  gain  to  the  science  of  language  to  bring  these 
two  branches  of  enquiry  into  closer  union,  even  as  the 
processes  they  relate  to  have  been  going  on  together  since 
the  earliest  days  of  speech.  At  present  the  historical  phi- 
lologists of  the  school  of  Grimm  and  Bopp,  whose  great 
work  has  been  the  tracing  of  our  Indo-European  dialects 
to  an  early  Aryan  form  of  language,  have  had  much  the 
advantage  in  fulness  of  evidence  and  strictness  of  treatment. 
At  the  same  time  it  is  evident  that  the  views  of  the  genera- 
tive philologists,  from  De  Brosses  onward,  embody  a  sound 


living  sounds,  are  affected  by  phonetic  changes  such  as  that  of  Grimm's 
law,  which  act  on  articulate  sounds  no  longer  fully  expressive  in  them- 
selves, but  handed  down  by  mere  tradition.  Thus  p  and/occur  in  one  and 
the  same  dialect  in  interjections  of  disgust  and  aversion,  puh  I  ft  I  being 
used  in  Venice  or  Paris,  just  as  similar  sounds  would  be  in  London.  In 
tracing  this  group  of  words  from  early  Aryan  forms,  it  must  also  be  noticed 
that  Sanskrit  is  a  very  imperfect  guide,  for  its  alphabet  has  no/,  and  it  can 
hardly  give  the  rule  in  this  matter  to  languages  possessing  both  p  and  /, 
and  thus  capable  of  nicer  appreciation  of  this  class  of  interjections. 


iiiliiii' 


EMOTIONAL  AND   IMITATIVE   LANOUAOE. 


199 


bhis  theory, 
und  pu  to 
;  '  the  meat 
atinks ;  the 
iguage  has 
i,  rot,*  puz 
lasty,  puxi, 
e  Columbia 
oailar  names 
and  French 
n  Ji/  words 
aage,  if  not 
ich '  maistre 
I  fi-Jl  books 


principle,  and  that  much  of  the  evidence  collected  as  to 
emotional  and  othei  directly  expressive  words,  is  of  the 
highest  value  in  the  argument.  But  in  working  out  the 
details  of  such  word-formation,  it  must  be  remembered  that 
no  department  of  philology  lies  more  open  to  Augustine's 
caustic  remark  on  the  etymologists  of  his  time,  that  like  the 
interpretation  of  dreams,  the  derivation  of  words  is  set 
down  by  each  man  according  to  his  own  fancy.  (Ut 
somniorum  interpretatio  ita  verborum  origo  pro  cujusque 
ingenio  preedicatur.) 


ach  separa- 
>logy,  which 
id  historical 
change.    It 
bring  these 
ven  as  the 
ether  since 
torical  phi- 
hose  great 
a.n  dialects 
much  the 
;reatment. 
ihe  genera- 
y  a  sound 


(«!■» 

'  '    IS 

li  '». 

i,  ;■' .  k 
I.     I 


of  Grimm's 
ive  in  them- 
xr  in  one  and 
ihl  ftl  being 
London.  In 
so  be  noticed 
/,  and  it  can 

oth  p  and  /, 
tions. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

EMOTIONAL   AND    IMITATIVK    LANOUAffE   (cOtl/iuued). 

Imitative  Words— Hutnftii  iictioiiM  numcd  from  Hound — Animals'  namosfrom 
cries,  &o. — Musical  Instruments — Sounds  reproduced —Worda  modi- 
flod  to  adapt  sound  to  scnso — Reduplication — Graduation  of  vowels  to 
express  distance  and  diflbre nee— Children's  Language— Sound-words 
as  related  to  Sense- words — Language  an  original  product  of  tho  lower 
Culture. 


ir 

I. 


1 

'».,;^S, 

1 

<r-"^^^ 

1'^' 

' '  f 

1. 
1 

■  m 

i'lll,, 


mm 


From  the  earliest  times  of  language  to  our  own  day,  it  is 
unlikely  that  men  ever  quite  ceased  to  be  conscious  that 
some  of  their  words  were  derived  from  imitation  of  the 
common  sounds  heard  about  them.  In  our  own  modern 
English,  for  instance,  results  of  such  imitation  are  evident ; 
flies  buzz,  bees  fmm,  snake o  hiss,  a  cracker  or  a  bottle  of 
ginger-beer  pojis,  a  cannon  or  a  bittern  booms.  In  the 
words  for  animals  and  for  musical  instruments  in  the 
various  languages  of  the  world,  tho  imitation  of  their  cries 
and  tones  is  often  to  be  plainly  heard,  as  in  the  names  of 
the  hoopoe,  the  ai-ai  sloth,  the  kakii  parrot,  the  Eastern 
tomtom,  which  is  a  drum,  the  African  ulule,  which  is  a  flute, 
the  Siamese  khong-bong,  which  is  a  wooden  harmonicon,  and 
in  like  manner  through  a  host  of  other  words.  But  these 
evident  cases  are  far  from  representing  the  whole  trfevts  of 
imitation  on  the  growth  of  language.  They  fo.iM  vn!*:..  i, 
the  easy  entrance  to  a  philological  region,  which  becomes 
less  penetrable  the  farther  it  is  explored. 

The  operations  of  which  we  see  the  results  before  us  in 
t.t  .ictual  languages  of  the  world  seem  to  have  been  some- 
v/h&v  «»  ^-  l!owp.  Men  have  imitated  their  own  emotional 
uttera,;^  'es  or  ijtterjections,  the  cries  of  animals,  the  tones  of 


liiiiii! 


iHued). 


.Is' names  from 
-Words  modi- 
n  of  vowuls  to 
Sound-words 
it  of  tho  lower 


n  day,  it  is 

isoious  that 

tion  of  the 

wn  modern 

re  evident ; 

a  bottle  of 

is.    In  the 

[its   in  the 

their  cries 

)  names  of 

le  Eastern 

is  a  flute, 

nicon,  and 

But  these 

J  I  .fects  of 

1  becomes 


tore  us  m 
een  some- 
emotional 
e  tones  of 


KMOTIONAL    AND    IMITATIVK   LANUUAOB. 


201 


muHical  instruments,  tho  sounds  of  shouting,  liowling, 
stamping,  breaking,  tearing,  8cn4»ing.  with  otliors  which 
are  all  day  coming  to  their  ears,  and  out  of  these  imitatiuuh 
many  current  words  indisputably  have  thtiir  sourc(*.  Kut 
these  words,  as  wo  find  thorn  in  use,  ditfcr  often  widely, 
often  beyond  all  recognition,  from  the  original  sounds  the^ 
sprant;  Troiii.  In  tho  first  place,  man's  voice  can  only  make 
n  ^ry\  A':  ';opy  of  most  sounds  his  car  receives;  his  pos- 
.  Ible  \owols  are  very  limited  in  their  range  compared  with 
ujii  '■  r\  tones,  and  his  possible  consonants  still  more  helpless 
as  a  means  of  imitating  natural  noises.  Moreover,  his  voice 
is  only  allowed  to  use  a  part  even  of  this  imperfect  imitative 
power,  seeing  that  each  language  for  its  own  convenience  re- 
stricts it  to  a  small  number  of  set  vowels  ami  consonants,  to 
which  the  imitative  sounds  have  to  conform,  thus  becoming 
conventionalized  into  articulate  words  with  further  loss  of 
imitative  accuracy.  No  class  of  w^ords  have  a  more  perfect 
imitative  origin  than  those  which  simply  profess  to  be  vocal 
imitations  of  sound.  How  ordinary  alphabets  to  some 
extent  succeed  and  to  some  extent  fail  in  writing  down  these 
sounds  may  be  judged  from  a  few  examples.  Thus,  the 
Australian  imitation  of  a  spear  or  bullet  striking  is  given  as 
foop ;  to  the  Zulu,  when  a  calabash  is  beaten,  it  says  hou  ; 
the  Karens  hear  the  flitting  ghosts  of  the  dead  call  in  the 
wailing  voice  of  the  wind,  re  re,  ro  ro ;  the  old  traveller, 
Pietro  della  Valle,  tells  how  the  Shah  of  Persia  sneered  at 
Timur  and  his  Tartars,  with  their  arrows  that  wont  ter  ter ; 
certain  Buddhist  li.'retics  maintained  that  water  is  alive, 
because  when  it  boils  it  says  chicJdtd,  chiilchita,  a  symptom 
of  vitality  which  occasioned  much  theological  controversy  as 
to  drinking  cold  and  warm  water.  Lastly,  sound-words 
taken  up  into  tho  gtmeral  inventory  of  a  language  have  to 
follow  its  orgauic  changes,  and  in  the  course  of  phonetic 
transition,  combination,  decay,  and  mutilation,  to  lose  ever 
more  and  more  their  original  shape.  To  take  a  single 
example,  the  French  huer  '  to  shout '  (Welsh  hwa)  may  be 
a  perfect  imitative  verb ;  yet  when  it  passes  into  modern 


11 

I  -J 

i  ■' 

If  .' 


L 

'i 

■-]   1 

202 


EMOTIONAL   AND   IMITATIVE   LANGUAGE. 


3'-          •'«.iiiii 

■j:               *■►  HUSH 
1^-      ^    -     If  |H, 

t               -1" 

'■i           '  -pi^ 

1  Si 

i|jd|pt!liiiiii 

^|Bp!i!i'^ii 

W':- 

P) 


IHl': 


English  /me  and  cry,  our  changed  pronunciation  of  the 
vowel  destroys  all  imitation  of  the  call.  Now  to  the 
language-makers  all  this  was  of  little  account.  They 
merely  wanted  recognized  words  to  express  recognized 
thoughts,  and  no  doubt  arrived  by  repeated  trials  at  systems 
which  were  found  practically  to  answer  this  purpose.  But  to 
the  modern  philologist,  who  is  attempting  to  work  out  the 
converse  of  the  problem,  and  to  follow  backward  the  course 
of  words  to  original  imitative  sound,  the  difficulty  is  most 
embarrassing.  It  is  not  only  that  thousands  of  words  reaUy 
derived  from  such  imitation  may  now  by  successive  change 
have  lost  all  safe  traces  of  their  history ;  such  mere 
deficiency  of  knowledge  is  only  a  minor  evil.  What  is  far 
worse  is  that  the  way  is  thrown  open  to  an  unlimited 
number  of  false  solutions,  which  yet  look  on  the  face  of 
them  fully  as  like  truth  as  others  which  w^e  know  historically 
to  be  true.  One  thing  is  clear,  that  it  is  of  no  use  to  resort 
to  violent  means,  to  rush  in  among  the  words  of  language, 
explaining  them  away  right  and  left  as  derived  each  from 
some  remote  application  of  an  imitative  noise.  The  advo- 
cate of  the  Imitative  Theory  who  attempts  this,  trusting  in 
his  own  powers  of  discernment,  has  indeed  taken  in  hand  a 
perilous  task,  for,  in  fact,  of  all  judges  of  the  question  at 
issue,  he  has  nourished  and  trained  himself  up  to  become  the 
very  worst.  His  imagination  is  ever  suggesting  to  him 
what  his  judgment  would  like  to  find  true ;  like  a  witness 
answering  the  questions  of  the  counsel  on  his  own  side,  he 
answers  in  good  faith,  but  with  what  bias  we  all  know. 
It  was  thus  with  De  Brosses,  to  whom  this  department  of 
philology  owes  so  much.  It  is  nothing  to  say  that  he  had 
a  keen  ear  for  the  voice  of  Nature ;  she  must  have  positively 
talked  to  him  in  alphabetic  language,  for  he  could  hear  the 
sound  of  hollowness  in  the  sk  of  (tkcltttu)  'to  dig,'  of 
ho-rdness  in  the  cal  of  callosity,  the  noise  of  insertion  of  a 
body  between  two  others  in  the  tr  of  trans,  intra.  In 
enquiries  so  liable  to  misleading  fancy,  no  pains  should  be 
spared  in  securing  impartial  testimony,  and  it  fortunately 


EMOTIONAIi  AND  IMITATIVE  LANGUAGE. 


203 


ion  of  the 

)w  to  the 

it.      They 

recognized 

at  systems 

»se.  But  to 

rk  out  the 

the  course 

ty  is  most 

ords  really 

Lve  change 

uch    mere 

^hat  is  far 

unlimited 

he  face  of 

listorically 

e  to  resort 

language, 

each  from 

rhe  advo- 

rusting  in 

in  hand  a 

lestion  at 

tecome  the 

g  to  him 

a  witness 

n  side,  he 

all  know. 

rtment  of 

it  he  had 

jositively 

heai"  the 

dig;  of 

tion  of  a 
ntra.  In 
ihould  be 
rtunately 


happens  that  there  are  available  sources  of  such  evidence, 
which,  when  thoroughly  worked,  will  give  to  the  theory  of 
imitative  words  as  near  an  approach  to  accuracy  as  has  been 
attained  to  in  any  other  wide  philological  problem.  By 
comparing  a  number  of  languages,  widely  apart  in  their 
general  system  and  materials,  and  whose  agreement  as 
to  the  words  in  question  can  only  be  accounted  for  by 
similar  formation  of  words  from  similar  suggestion  of  sound, 
we  obtain  groups  of  words  whose  imitative  character  is  in- 
disputable. The  groups  here  considered  consist  in  general 
of  imitative  words  of  the  simpler  kind,  those  directly  con- 
nected with  the  special  sound  they  are  taken  from,  but  their 
examination  to  some  extent  admits  of  words  being  brought 
in,  where  the  connexion  of  the  idea  expressed  with  the 
sound  imitated  is  more  remote.  This,  lastly,  opens  the  far 
wider  and  more  difficult  problem,  how  far  imitation  of 
soumds  is  the  primary  cause  of  the  great  mass  of  words  in 
the  vocabularies  of  the  world,  between  whose  sound  and  sense 
no  direct  connexion  appears. 

Words  which  express  human  actions  accompanied  with 
sound  form  a  very  large  and  intelligible  class.  In  remote 
and  most  different  languages,  we  find  such  forms  as  pit,  puf, 
hu,  buf,fu,fuf,  in  use  with  the  meaning  oi puffing,  fuffi^ng,  or 
blowing;  Malay ^ii/jw<;  Tongan6w/it;  Maori ^itpm;  Am&- 
tr&\isinbobun,bwa-bun  ;  0&l\&bufa,afufa  j  Zulu  futa,2ninga, 
pupuza  {fu,pu,  used  as  expressive  particles) ;  Quiche  jiuba ; 
Quichua  puhunij  Tupi  ypeA;  Finnish  puhlcia  ;  Hebrew 
puach  ;  Danish  puste  ;  Lithuanian  p)'0.ciu  ;  and  in  numbers 
of  other  languages  ;^  here,  grammatical  adjuncts  apart,  the 
significant  force  lies  in  the  imitative  syllable.  Savages  have 
named  the  European  musket  when  they  saw  it,  by  the  sound 
pu,  describing  not  the  report,  but  the  puff  of  smoke  issuing 
from  the  muzzle.  The  Society  Islanders  supposed  at  first 
that  the  white  men  blew  through  the  barrel  of  the  gun,  and 
they  called  it  accordingly  pupuhi,  from  the  verb  puhi  to 

*  Mpongwo punjma ;  Basuto/oAra;  Caxih phoubde ;  Arawac  appudun  (igneva 
sufflare).    Other  caaea  aro  givon  by  Wedgwood,  '  Or.  of  Lang.'  p.  83. 


■.m». 


*1^ 


-t:i 


:    1 


<  '  'I 


204 


EMOTIONAL   AND   IMITATIVE   LANGUAGE. 


If" 


11(11  it  il^ 
|f**lli 

""  1  ■ 


blow,  while  the  New  Zealanders  more  simply  called  it  a  pu. 
So  the  Amaxosa  of  South  Africa  call  it  umpu,  from  the 
imitative  sound  pu  I  The  Chinook  Jargon  of  North- West 
America  uses  the  phrase  mainook  2^00  (make  poo)  for  a  verb 
'to  shoot.'  and  a  six-chambered  revolver  is  called  tohum 
poo,  i.  e.,  a  '  8ix-/?oo.'  When  a  European  uses  the  word 
puff  to  denote  the  discharge  of  a  gun,  he  is  merely  referring 
to  the  smoke  blown  out,  as  he  would  speak  of  a  puff'  of 
wind,  or  even  a  powder-2?w^  or  a  piiff'-htXi. ;  and  when  a 
pistol  is  called  in  colloquial  German  a  puffer,  the  meaning 
of  the  word  matches  that  used  for  it  in  French  Argot,  a 
'soufflant.'  It  has  often  been  supposed  that  the  puff' 
imitates  the  actual  sound,  the  hang  of  the  gun,  and  this  has 
been  brought  forward  to  show  by  what  extremely  different 
words  one  and  the  same  sound  may  be  imitated,  but  this  is 
a  mistake'  These  derivations  of  the  name  of  the  gun  from 
the  notion  of  blowing  correspond  with  those  which  give 
names  to  the  comparatively  noiseless  blow-tube  of  the  bird- 
hunter,  called  by  the  Indians  of  Yucatan  a  ^)h.&,  in  South 
America  by  the  Chiquitos  a  pucuna,  by  the  Cocamas  a  pu- 
na.  Looking  into  vocabularies  of  languages  which  have 
such  verbs  '  to  blow,'  it  is  usual  to  find  with  them  other 
words  apparently  related  to  them,  and  expressing  more  or 
less  distant  ideas.  Thus  Australian  ^oo-y^t-,  puyu  '  smoke  ; ' 
Quichua  puhuciini  '  to  light  a  fire,'  punquini  '  to  swell,' 
puyu,  puhuyu  '  a  cloud ; '  Maori  pulcu  '  to  pant,'  puka 
'  to  swell ; '  Tupi  pup'ib,  pupdre  '  to  boil ; '  Galla  huhe 
'  wind,'  huhlza  '  to  cool  by  blowing ; '  Kanui'i  (root  fu) 
fuiKjln  '  to  blow,  swell,'  furiidu  '  a  stuffed  pad  or  bolster,' 
«S:c.,  buhute  '  bellows '  {huhute  fumcjin '  I  blow  the  bellows') ; 
Zulu  (dropping  the  ^xc^-^qb) puku, puhu'ini '  frothing,  foam,' 
whence  jimkupuku  '  an  empty  frothy  fellow,'  pupiiiiiia  '  to 
bubble,  boil,'  fu  '  a  cloud,'  furtifu  '  blown  about  like  high 
grass  in  the  wind,'  whence  fuvifuta '  to  be  confused,  thrown 
into  disorder,'  futo  '  bellows,'  fuba  '  the  breast,  chest,'  then 
figuratively  *  bosom,  conscience.' 

'  Set!  Wedgwood,  '  Die'  Introd.  p.  viii. 


r." 


!'h 


EMOTIONAL   AND   IMITATIVE    LANOUAGE. 


205 


lied  it  a  pu. 

u,  from  the 

f^orth-West 

))  for  a  verb 

Jled  tohuni 

i  the  word 

ly  referring 

if  a  puff  of 

,nd  when  a 

tie  meaning 

ch  Argot,  a 

t  the  puff' 

md  this  has 

ly  different 

,  but  this  is 

le  gun  from 

which  give 

of  the  bird- 

h,  in  South 

amas  a  ^?u- 

vhich  have 

them  other 

ng  more  or 

it '  smoke  ; ' 

'  to  swell,' 

ant,'  puka 

alia  bube 

(root  fu) 

or  bolster,' 

bellows ') ; 

ling,  foam,' 

ip^inia  '  to 

like  high 

ed,  thrown 

best,'  then 


The  group  of  words  belonging  to  the  closed  lips,  of  which 
nmum,  mumming,  mumble  are  among  the  many  forms  belong- 
ing to  European  languages,^  are  worked  out  in  like  manner 
among  the  lower  races — Vei  mu  mu  '  dumb  ' ;  Mpongwe 
imamu  '  dumb  ' ;  Zulu  momata  (from  moma,  '  a  motion 
with  the  mouth  as  in  mumbling ') '  to  move  the  mouth  or 
lips,'  mumata  'to  close  the  lips  as  with  a  mouthful  of 
water,'  mumuta,  mumuza  '  to  eat  mouthfuls  of  corn,  &c., 
with  the  lips  shut ; '  Tahitian  viamu  '  to  be  silent,'  omumu 
'to  murmur;'  Fijian,  noTno,  nomo-7iovio  'to  be  silent;' 
Chilian,  iiomn  '  to  be  silent ; '  Quichd,  mem  '  mute,' 
whence  m,emer  '  to  become  mute ; '  Quichua,  amu  '  dumb, 
silent,'  amulUni  '  to  have  something  in  the  mouth,'  amul- 
layacuni  simlcta  'to  mutter,  to  grumble.'  The  group 
represented  by  Sanskrit  t'h'dfhii  'the  sound  of  spitting,' 
Persian  thu  kerdan  (make  thu)  '  to  spit,'  Greek'  tttvco,  may 
be  compared  with  Chinook  mamooh  toh,  took,  (make  toh, 
took) ;  Chilian  titvcMitn  (make  tuv) ;  Tahitian  tutua ;  Galla 
t'wu ;  Yoruba  tu.  Among  the  Sanskrit  verb-roots,  none 
carries  its  imitative  nature  more  plainly  than  kshu  'to 
sneeze  ; '  the  following  analogous  forms  are  from  South 
America : — Chilian,  echiun;  Quichua,  achhini  ;  and  from 
various  languages  of  Brazilian  tribes,  techa-ai,  haitschu, 
atchian,  natschun,  arltiachune,  &c.  Another  imitative  verb 
is  well  shown  in  the  Negro-English  dialect  of  Surinam, 
njam  '  to  eat '  (pron.  nyam),  njam-njam  '  food  '  ('  en  hem 
Tij'avjam  ben  de  sprinkhan  nanga  boesi-honi ' — '  and  his 
meat  was  locusts  and  wild  honey ').  In  Australia  the 
imitative  verb  '  to  eat '  re-appears  as  </'  nam-uvg.  In  Africa, 
the  Susu  language  has  )iluinmi,  'to  taste,  and  a  similar 
formation  is  observed  in  the  Zulu  nmnbita  '  to  smack  the 
lips  after  eating  or  tasting,  and  thence  to  be  tasteful,  to  be 
pleasant  to  the  mind.'  This  is  an  excellent  instance  of  the 
transition  of  mere  imitative  sound  to  the  expression  of 
mental  emotion,  and  it  corresponds  with  the  imitative  way 
in  which  the  Yakama  language,  in  speaking  of  little  children 
'  See  Wedgwood,  Die,  s.  v.  '  mum,'  &c. 


'is 


206 


EMOTIONAL  AND  IMITATrVE  LANGUAGE. 


1. 

IV  ■■■»(! 


il'- 


III'' 


IMi" 


or  pet  animals,  expresses  the  verb  '  to  love '  as  nevi-no-sha 
(to  make  n'm-n').  In  more  civilLzed  countries  these  forms 
are  mostly  confined  to  baby-language.  The  Chinese  child's 
word  for  eating  is  nam,  in  English  nurseries  nim  is  noticed 
as  answering  the  same  purpose,  and  the  Swedish  dictionary 
even  recognizes  namnam  '  a  tid-bit.' 

As  for  imitative  names  of  animals  derived  from  their  cries 
or  noises,  they  are  to  be  met  with  in  every  language,  from 
the  Australian  twonh  '  frog,'  the  Yakama  rol-rol  '  lark,'  to 
the  Coptic  eeid  'ass,'  the  Chinese  maou  'cat,'  and  the 
English  cuckoo  and  peeivit.  Their  general  principle  of 
formation  being  acknowledged,  their  further  philological 
interest  turns  mostly  on  cases  where  corresponding  words 
have  thus  been  formed  independently  in  distant  regions, 
and  those  where  the  imitative  name  of  the  creature,  or  its 
habitual  sound,  passes  to  express  some  new  idea  suggested 
by  its  character.  The  Sanskrit  name  of  the  Mka  crow  re- 
appears in  the  name  of  a  similar  bird  in  British  Columbia, 
the  kdh-kdh ;  a  fly  is  called  by  the  natives  of  Australia  a 
bumberoo,  like  Sanskrit  bamhhardll  'fly,'  Greek  /So/x- 
/3vAio9,  and  our  buvible-hee.  Analogous  to  the  name  of  the 
tse-tse  fly,  the  terror  of  African  travellers,  is  ntslntsi,  the 
word  for  '  fly '  among  the  Basutos,  which  also,  by  a  simple 
metaphor,  serves  to  express  the  idea  of  '  a  parasite.'  Mr. 
H.  W.  Bates's  description  seems  to  settle  the  dispute 
among  naturalists,  whether  the  toucan  had  its  name  from 
its  cry  or  not.  He  speaks  of  its  loud,  shrill,  yelping  cries 
having '  a  vague  resemblance  to  the  syllables  tocdno,  tocdno, 
and  hence  the  Indian  name  of  this  genus  of  birds.' 
Granting  this,  we  can  trace  this  sound-word  into  a  very 
new  meaning  ;  for  it  appears  that  the  bird's  monstrous  bill 
has  suggested  a  name  for  a  certain  large-nosed  tribe  of 
Indians,  who  are  accordingly  called  the  Tucanos}  The 
cock,  gallo  quiquiriqui,  as  the  Spanish  nursery-language 
calls  him,  has  a  long  list  of  names  from  various  languages 

'  Bates,  '  Naturalist  on  the  Amazons,'  2nd  cd.,  p.  404  ;  Markham  in  '  Tr. 
Eth.  Soc.,'  vol.  iii.  p.  143. 


lem-no-sha 
hese  forms 
lese  child's 
is  noticed 
dictionary 

their  cries 
uage,  from 
I  'lark,'  to 
'  and  the 
■inciple   of 
hilological 
ing  words 
it  regions, 
iure,  or  its 
suggested 
X  crow  re- 
Columbia, 
.ustralia  a 
■eek    /3o/x- 
me  of  the 
ilntsi,  the 
a  simple 
ite.'     Mr. 
dispute 
ime  from 
ling  cries 
0,  tocdno, 
)f  birds.' 
o  a  very 
rous  bill 
tribe  of 
1     The 
anguage 
mguages 

im  in  '  Tr. 


EMOTIONAL  AND  IMITATIVE  LANGUAGE. 


207 


'S. 


which  in  various  ways  imitate  his  crowing ;  in  Yoruba  he 
is  called  koklo,  in  Ibo  okoJco,  akoka,  in  Zulu  kuku,  in  Fin- 
nish kukko,  in  Sanskrit  kukkuta,  and  so  on.  He  is  men- 
tioned in  the  Zend-Avesta  in  a  very  curious  way,  by  a 
name  which  elaborately  imitates  his  cry,  but  which  the 
ancient  Persians  seem  to  have  held  disrespectful  to  their 
holy  bird,  who  rouses  men  from  sleep  to  good  thought, 
word,  and  work : — 

'  The  bird  who  bears  the  name  of  ParSdars,  0  holy  Zarathustra ; 
Upon  whom  evil-speaking  men  impose  the  name  Kahrkatag.'  * 

The  crowing  of  the  cock  (Malay  kdluruk,  kukuk)  serves  to 
mark  a  point  of  time,  cockcrow.  Other  words  originally 
derived  from  such  imitation  of  crowing  have  passed  into 
other  curiously  transformed  meanings:  Old  French  cocart 
'  vain ; '  modern  French  coquet  '  strutting  like  a  cod', 
coquetting,  a  coxcortih  j '  cocarde  '  a  cockade '  (from  its 
likeness  to  a  cock's  comb);  one  of  the  best  instances  is 
coquelicot,  a  name  given  for  the  same  reason  to  the  wild 
poppy,  and  even  more  distinctly  in  Languedoc,  where 
cacaracd  means  both  the  crowing  and  the  flower.  The  hen 
in  some  languages  has  a  name  corresponding  to  that  of  the 
cock,  as  in  Kussa  kukuduna  '  cock,'  kukukasi  '  hen  ; '  Ewe 
koklo-ttiu  '  cock,'  koklo-no  '  hen ; '  and  her  cackle  (whence 
she  has  in  Switzerland  the  name  of  gugel,  g'dggel)  has  passed 
into  language  as  a  term  for  idle  gossip  and  chatter  of 
women,  caquet,  caqueter,  gackern,  much  as  the  noise  of  a 
very  different  creature  seems  to  have  given  rise  not  only  to 
its  name,  Italian  cicala,  but  to  a  group  of  words  represented 
by  cicalar  '  to  chirp,  chatter,  talk  sillily.'  The  pigeon  is  a 
good  example  of  this  kind,  both  for  sound  and  sense.  It  is 
Latin  pipio,  Italian  pipplone,  piccione,  pigione,  modern 
Greek  ■nnrmci;,  French  pipion  (old),  pigeon ;  its  derivation 
is  from  the  young  bird's  peep,  Latin  pipire,  Italian  pipiare, 
pigiolare,  modern  Greek  -ittu'i'Cw,  to  chirp ;  by  an  easy 
metaphor,  a  pigeon  comes  to  mean  '  a  silly  young  fellow 

•• '  '  A  vesta,'  Farg.  xviii.  34-5. 


■  ■••■«t , 
i 


IP 


!il;, 


•ri.ii 


208 


EMOTIONAL   AND   IMITATIVE    LANGUAGE. 


easily  caught,'  to  pigeon  '  to  cheat,'  Italian  2>ip^oiie  *  a  silly 
guU,  one  that  is  soon  caught  and  trepanned,'  2)ip2^^o7)ure 
'  to  pigeon,  to  gull  one.'  In  an  entirely  different  family  of 
languages,  Mr.  Wedgwood  points  out  a  curiously  similai* 
jjrocess  of  derivation ;  Magyar  pipegrii, piiidni  'to  peep  or 
cheep ; '  pipe,  pipuk  '  a  chicken,  gosling ;  *  pipe-emher 
(chicken-man),  *a  silly  young  fellow,  booby.' ^  The  deri- 
vation of  Greek  /Sous,  Latin  hos,  Welsh  hu,  from  the  ox's 
lowing,  or  booing  as  it  is  called  in  the  north  country,  has 
been  much  debated.  With  an  excessive  desire  to  make 
Sanskrit  answer  as  a  general  Indo-European  type,  Bopp 
connected  Sanskrit  go,  old  German  chuo,  English  cow,  with 
these  words,  on  the  unusual  and  forced  assumption  of  a 
change  from  guttural  to  labial.^  The  direct  derivation  from 
sound,  however,  is  favoured  by  other  languages,  Cochin- 
Chinese  ho,  Hottentot  hou.  The  beast  may  almost  answer 
for  himself  in  the  words  of  that  Spanish  proverb  which 
remarks  that  people  talk  according  to  their  nature : 
•  Hablo  el  huey,  y  dijo  bu!'  '  The  ox  spoke,  and  he 
said  boo  ! ' 

Among  musical  instruments  with  imitative  names  are  the 
following : — the  nhee-shee-quoi,  the  mystic  rattle  of  the  Red 
Indian  medicine-man,  an  imitative  word  which  re -appears 
in  the  Darien  Indian  ^haJc-ahak,  the  shook-shooh  of  the 
Arawaks,  the  Chinook  sliiigh  (whence  shugh-opoots,  rattle- 
tail,  i.  e.,  '  rattlesnake  ; ') — the  drum,  called  ganga  in 
Haussa,  gafigan  in  the  Yoruba  country,  gunguraa  by  the 
Gallas,  and  having  its  analogue  in  the  Eastern  gong  ; — the 
bell,  called  in  Yakama  (N.  Amer.)  ktua-lal-ktva-lal,  in  Yalof 
(W.  Afr.)  walwul,  in  Russian  kolokol.  The  sound  of  the 
hom  is  imitated  in  English  nurseries  as  toot-toot,  and  this  is 
transferred  to  express  the  '  omnibus '  of  which  the  bugle  is 
the  signal:    with  this  nursery  word  is  to  be  classed  the 


'  Wedgwood,  Die,  s.  v.  'pigeon;'  Dioz,  'Etym.  WOrterb.,' s.  v.  'pic- 
ciono.' 

'  Bopp,  'Gloss.  Sanscr.,*  s.  v.  'go,'  Sec  Pott,  ' Wurzol-WOrterb.  dor 
Indo-Germ.  Spr.,'s.  v.  'gu,'  '  Ziihlmothodo,'  p.  2'27. 


ill 


lone  'a  silly 
jnppionare 
it  family  of 
isly  similai* 
*  to  peep  or 
inpe-eviher 
The  deri- 
>m  the  ox's 
tountry,  has 
•e  to  make 
type,  Eopp 
h  cow,  with 
nption  of  a 
vation  from 
;cs,  Cochin- 
nost  answer 
verb  which 
sir  nature  : 
ke,  and   he 

,mes  are  the 

of  the  Red 

re -appears 

\ooh   of  the 

^ots,  rattle- 

ganga    in 

>na  by  the 

luiig  ; — the 

l,  in  Yalof 

and  of  the 

and  this  is 

e  bugle  is 

ilassed  the 

(.,'  s.  V.  'pic- 
hVOrterb.  dor 


EMOTIONAL  AND  IMITATIVE  LANGUAaE. 


^09 


Peruvian  name  for  the  'shell-trumpet,'  pututu,  and  the 
Gothic  thuthaurn  {thut-horn),  which  is  even  used  in  the 
Gothic  Bible  for  the  last  trumpet  of  the  day  of  judgment, — 
'  In  spedistin  thuthafirna.  thuthaiirneith  auk  jah  dauthans 
ustandand'  (1  Cor.  xv.  52).  How  such  imitative  words, 
when  thoroughly  taken  up  into  language,  suffer  change  of 
pronunciation  in  which  the  original  sound-meaning  is  lost, 
may  be  seen  in  the  English  word  tahor,  which  we  might 
not  recognize  as  a  sound-word  at  all,  did  we  not  notice  that 
it  is  French  tahour,  a  word  which  in  the  form  tambour  ob- 
viously belongs  to  a  group  of  words  for  drums,  extending 
from  the  small  rattling  Arabic  tuhl  to  the  Indian  dundhuhi 
and  the  tomhe,  the  Moqui  drum  made  of  a  hollowed  log. 
The  same  group  shows  the  transfer  of  such  imitative  words 
to  objects  which  are  like  the  instrument,  but  have  nothing 
to  do  with  its  sound  ;  few  people  who  talk  of  fawi&owr-work, 
and  fewer  still  who  speak  of  a  footstool  as  a  tabouret,  asso- 
ciate these  words  with  the  sound  of  a  drum,  yet  the  con- 
nexion is  clear  enough.  When  these  two  processes  go  on 
together,  and  a  sound-word  changes  its  original  sound  on 
the  one  hand,  and  transfers  its  meaning  to  something  else 
on  the  other,  the  result  may  soon  leave  philological  ana- 
lysis quite  helpless,  unless  by  accident  historical  evidence 
is  forthcoming.  Thus  with  the  English  word  jnj^e. 
Putting  aside  the  particular  pronunciation  which  we  give 
the  word,  and  referring  it  back  to  its  mediteval  Latin  or 
French  sound  in  ^jipa,  2)^2^^,  we  have  before  us  an  evident 
imitative  name  of  a  musical  instrument,  derived  from  a 
familiar  sound  used  also  to  represent  the  chirping  of 
chickens,  Latin  j^ipM'C,  English  to  peep,  as  in  the  trans- 
lation of  Isaiah  viii.  19 :  '  Seek  .  .  .  unto  wizards  that 
2^eep,  and  that  mutter.'  The  Algonquin  Indians  appear 
to  have  formed  from  this  sound  pib  (with  a  grammatical 
suffix)  their  name  for  the pib-e-givun  or  native  flute.  Now 
just  as  tuba,  tubus,  'a  trumpet'  (itself  very  likely  an 
imitative  word)  has  given  a  name  for  any  kind  of  tube, 
so  the  word  ^5?/>e  has   been  transferred  from  the  musical 

VOL,  I.  p 


/ 


s 


210 


EMOTIONAL   AND   IMITATIVE    LANGUAGE. 


li  ij. 

*  'I !  i 

?  !  i 


bin 


% 


m 

,ll " 

111  l> 


•*«Sli 
1*1"  l: 


»^l(il 


rf 

tjiH^ 

':7'' 

'?'f'' 

rf 

i'^' 

^   .U;![|,,j|.. 

1 

10- 

I' 

t 

^:,'-:„ 

instrument  to  which  it  first  belonged,  and  is  used  to 
describe  tubes  of  various  sorts,  gan-pipes,  water-pipes, 
and  pipes  in  general.  There  is  nothing  unusual  in  these 
transitions  of  meaning,  which  are  in  fact  rather  the  rule 
than  the  exception.  The  chihouJc  was  originally  a  herds- 
man's pipe  or  flute  in  Central  Asia.  The  caluviet,  popu- 
larly ranked  with  the  tomahawk  and  the  mocassin  among 
characteristic  Red  Indian  words,  is  only  the  name  for  a 
shepherd's  pipe  (Latin  calamus)  in  the  dialect  of  Normandy, 
corresponding  with  the  chalumeau  of  literary  French ; 
for  when  the  early  colonists  in  Canada  saw  the  Indians 
performing  the  strange  operation  of  smoking,  'with  a 
hollow  piece  of  stone  or  wood  like  a  pipe,'  as  Jacques 
Cartier  has  it,  they  merely  gave  to  the  native  tobacco- 
pipe  the  name  of  the  French  musical  instrument  it  re- 
sembled. Now  changes  of  sound  and  of  sense  like  this  of 
the  English  word  2npe  must  have  been  in  continual  opera- 
tion in  hundreds  of  languages  where  we  have  no  evidence  to 
follow  them  by,  and  where  we  probably  may  never  obtain 
such  evidence.  But  what  little  we  do  know  must  compel  us 
to  do  justice  to  the  imitation  of  sound  as  a  really  existing 
process,  capable  of  furnishing  an  indefinitely  large  supply  of 
words  for  things  and  actions  which  have  no  necessary 
connexion  at  all  with  that  sound.  Where  the  traces  of  the 
transfer  are  lost,  the  result  is  a  stock  of  words  which  are 
the  despair  of  philologists,  but  are  perhaps  none  the  less 
fitted  for  the  practical  use  of  men  who  simply  want  recog- 
nized symbols  for  recognized  ideas. 

The  claim  of  the  Eastern  tomtom  to  have  its  name  from  a 
mere  imitation  of  its  sound  seems  an  indisputable  one ;  but 
when  it  is  noticed  in  what  various  languages  the  beating  of  a 
resounding  object  is  expressed  by  something  like  turn,,  tumh, 
tump,  tup,  as  in  Javan  tumhuk,  Coptic  t'nmo, '  to  pound  in  a 
mortar,'  it  becomes  evident  that  the  admission  involves 
more  than  at  first  sight  appears.  In  Malay,  timpa,  tampa, 
is  '  to  beat  out,  hammer,  forge ; '  in  the  Chinook  Jargon 
tum^-tum  is  '  the  heart,'  and  by  combining  the  same  sound 


1^'^- 


is   used  to 
mter-pipes, 
al  in  these 
er  the  rule 
ly  a  herds- 
imet,  popu- 
ssin  among 
Qame  for  a 
Normandy, 
L'V   French  ; 
the  Indians 
ig,  '  with  a 
as  Jacques 
ve  tobacco- 
ment  it  re- 
j  like  this  of 
inual  opera- 
evidence  to 
lever  obtain 
st  compel  us 
Jly  existing 
rge  supply  of 
o  necessary 
xaces  of  the 
|s  which  are 
me  the  less 
Iwant  recog- 

lame  from  a 

lie  one ;  but 

|beatingof  a 

^tum,twnih, 

>  pound  in  a 

on  involves 

tipa,  tartipa, 

3ok  Jargon 

same  sound 


tt 


EMOTIONAL   AND   IMITATIVE   LANGUAQE. 


211 


with  the  English  word  'water,'  a  name  is  made  for 
'  waterfall,'  tum-wdta.  The  Gallas  of  East  Africa  declare 
that  a  box  on  the  ear  seems  to  them  to  make  a  noise  like 
tub,  for  they  call  its  sound  tuhdjeda,  that  is,  •  to  say  tuh.' 
In  the  same  language,  tuma  is  '  to  beat,'  whence  tumtu,  '  a 
workman,  especially  one  who  beats,  a  smith.'  With  the 
aid  of  another  imitative  word,  hufa  '  to  blow,'  the  Gallas 
can  construct  this  wholly  imitative  sentence,  tumtun  hufd 
bufti,  'the  smith  blows  the  bellows,'  as  an  English 
child  might  say,  'the  tumtuvi  puffn  the  puffer'  This 
imitative  sound  seems  to  have  obtained  a  footing  among  the 
Aryan  verb-roots,  as  in  Sanskrit  tap,  tubh '  to  smite,'  while 
in  Greek,  tup,  tumji,  has  the  meaning  of  'to  beat,  to 
thwnip,'  producing  for  instance  Tin^itavov,  tympanwni,  'a 
drum  or  tomtom.'  Again,  the  verb  to  crack  has  become  in 
modern  English  as  thorough  a  root-word  as  the  language 
possesses.  The  mere  imitation  of  the  sound  of  breaking 
has  passed  into  a  verb  to  break ;  we  speak  of  a  crached  cup 
or  a  cracked  reputation  without  a  thought  of  imitation  of 
sound;  but  we  cannot  yet  use  the  German  krachen  or 
French  craquer  in  this  way,  for  they  have  not  developed  in 
meaning  as  our  word  has,  but  remain  in  their  purely  imita- 
tive stage.  There  are  two  corresponding  Sanskrit  words 
for  the  saw,  kra-kara,  kra-kacha,  that  is  to  say,  the  '  kra- 
maker,  A;ra-crier ; '  and  it  is  to  be  observed  that  all  such 
terms,  which  expressly  state  that  they  are  imitations  of 
sound,  are  particularly  valuable  evidence  in  these  enquiries, 
for  whatever  doubt  there  may  be  as  to  other  words  being 
really  derived  from  imitated  sound,  there  can,  of  course,  be 
none  here.  Moreover,  there  is  evidence  of  the  same  sound 
having  given  rise  to  imitative  words  in  other  families  of 
language,  Dahoman  kra-kra, '  a  watchman's  rattle ; '  Grebo 
grikd  '  a  saw ; '  Aino  chacha  '  to  saw ; '  Malay  graji  '  a 
saw/  karat '  to  gnash  the  teeth,'  karat '  to  make  a  grating 
noise;'  Coptic  khrij  'to  gnash  the  teeth,'  khrajrej  'to 
grate.'  Another  form  of  the  imitation  is  given  in  the 
descriptive    Galla    expression    cacakdjeda,    i.e.,    'to 

p  2 


/ 


say 


212 


EMOTIONAL  AND   IMITATIVE   LANOUAOE. 


tHijIl 

iii!! 


^'■■tji|!3: 


cacalCf  'to  crack,  kmchen.'  With  this  sound  corresponds 
a  whole  family  of  Peruvian  words,  of  which  the  root  seems 
to  be  the  guttural  ecu,  coming  from  far  back  in  the  throat ; 
ccallani,  'to  break,'  ccatatani,  'to  gnash  the  teeth,' 
ccacfviy,  'thunder,'  and  the  expressive  word  for  'a  thun- 
der-storm,' ccaccaccahay ,  which  carries  the  imitative  process 
so  much  farther  than  such  European  words  as  thunder-cZa/j, 
donnQv-klapf.  In  Maori,  pata  is  '  to  patter  as  water  drop- 
ping, drops  of  rain.'  The  Manchu  language  describes  the 
noif»e  of  fruits  falling  from  the  trees  as  pata  pata  (so  Hindu- 
stani bhadhhad) ;  this  is  like  our  word  pat,  and  we  bhculd 
say  in  the  same  manner  that  the  fruit  comes  pattering 
down,  while  French  patatra  is  a  recognized  imitatiot>.  of 
something  falling.  Coptic  ijotpt  is  'to  fall,'  and  the 
Australian  hadhadin  (or  patpatin)  is  translated  into  almost 
literal  English  &apitpattin(j.  On  the  strength  of  such  non- 
Aryan  languages,  are  we  to  assign  an  imitative  origin 
to  the  Sanski'it  verb-root  ^xt^,  'to  fall,'  and  to  Greek 
tiItttu)  ? 

Wishing  rather  to  gain  a  clear  survey  Oi  ibe  principles  of 
language-making  than  to  plunge  into  obscure  problems,  it  is 
not  necessary  for  me  to  discuss  here  questions  of  intricate 
detail.  The  point  which  continually  arises  is  this, — granted 
that  a  particular  kind  of  transition  from  sound  to  sense  is 
possible  in  the  abstract,  may  it  be  safely  claimed  in  a  parti- 
cular case?  In  looking  through  the  vocabularies  of  the 
world,  it  appears  that  most  languages  offer  words  which,  by 
obvious  likeliness  or  by  their  correspondence  with  similar 
forms  elsewhere,  may  put  forward  a  tolerable  claim  to  be 
considered  imitative.  Some  languages,  as  Aztec  or 
Mohawk,  offer  singularly  few  examples,  while  in  others 
they  are  much  more  numerous.  Take  Australian  cases: 
^valle,  'to  ivail ; '  bung-bung-iueen,  '  thunder ; '  ivirriti,  '  to 
blow,  as  wind  ; '  wirrirriti,  '  to  storm,  rage,  as  in  fight ; ' 
wirri,  bivirri,  'the  native  throwing  club,'  seemingly  so 
called  from  its  ^vhir  through  the  air ;  kurarriti, '  to  hum, 
buzz ; '   kurrirrurrlri,  '  round  about,  unintelligible,'  &c. ; 


:ll!ii: 


orrespondB 
root  seems 
the  throat ; 
the    teeth,' 
r  'a  thun- 
iive  process 
ander-clap, 
irater  drop- 
iscribes  the 
(so  Hindu- 
we  should 
3  pattchuj 
mitatiof.  of 
,'   and    the 
into  almost 
f  such  non- 
itive  origin 
I   to   Greek 

)rinciples  of 
oblems,  it  is 
of  intricate 
-granted 
to  sense  is 
in  a  parti- 
ies  of  the 
s  which,  by 
vith  similar 
claim  to  be 
Aztec    or 
in  others 
lian  cases: 
wirriti, '  to 
in  fight ; ' 
emingly  so 
i,  *  to  hum, 
gible,'  &c. ; 


EMOTIONAL  AND   IMITATIVE   LANGUAGE. 


213 


pltata,  '  to  knock,  pelt,  as  rain,'  pita2ntata,  '  to  knock ;  * 

wiiti, '  to  laugh,  rejoice  ' — as  in  our  own  '  Turnament  of 

Tottenham ' : — 

'"We  te  he!"  quoth  Tyb,  and  lugh, 
"  Ye  er  a  dughty  man !  " ' 

The  so-called  Chinook  jargon  of  British  Columbia  is  a  lan- 
guage crowded  with  imitative  words,  sometimes  adopted 
from  the  native  Indian  languages,  sometimes  made  on  the 
spot  by  the  combined  efforts  of  the  white  man  and  the 
Indian  to  make  one  another  understand.  Samples  of  its 
quality  are  hdh-hoh,  '  to  cough,'  kd-ko,  '  to  knock,'  kiva- 
lal-k^va-lal,  '  to  gallop,'  muck-a-rtnick,  '  to  cat,'  rhak-chak, 
'the  bald  eagle'  (from  its  scream),  mamook  tuish  (make 
tsiah),  'to  shai*pen  on  the  grindstone.'  It  has  been 
remarked  by  Prof.  Max  MUller  that  the  peculiar  sound 
made  in  blowing  out  a  candle  is  not  a  favourite  in  civilized 
languages,  but  it  seems  to  be  recognized  here,  for  no  doubt 
it  is  what  the  compiler  of  the  vocabulary  is  doing  his  best 
to  write  down  when  he  gives  mamook poh  (make  poh)  as  the 
Chinook  expression  for  '  to  blow  out  or  extinguish  as  a 
candle.'  This  jargon  is  in  great  measure  of  new  growth 
within  the  last  seventy  or  eighty  years,  but  its  imitative 
words  do  not  differ  in  nature  from  those  of  the  more 
ordinary  and  old-established  languages  of  the  world.  Thus 
among  Brazilian  tribes  there  appear  Tupi  corordng,  cururuc, 
'  to  snore '  (compare  Coptic  kherkker,  Quichua  ccorcuni 
(ccor) ),  whence  it  appears  that  an  imitation  of  a  snore  may 
perhaps  serve  the  Carajds  Indians  to  express  '  to  sleep ' 
arourou-crd,  as  well  as  the  related  idea  of  'night,*  rooiu 
Again  Pimenteira  ebaung,  '  to  bruise,  beat,'  compares  with 
Yoruba  gha,  '  to  slap,'  gha  (gbang)  '  to  sound  loudly,  to 
bang,'  and  so  forth.  Among  African  languages,  the  Zulu 
seems  particularly  rich  in  imitative  words.  Thus  hihiza, 
'to  dribble  like  children,  drivel  in  speaking'  (compare 
English  bib)  ;  babala, '  the  larger  bush-antelope '  (from  the 
baa  of  the  female) ;  boba,  '  to  babble,  chatter,  be  noisy,* 
bobi,  '  a  babbler  ;  *  boboni, '  a  throstle '  (cries  bo  !  bo  !  com- 


1. 1 1  '< 


214 


EMOTIONAL    AND    IMITATIVK    LANOUAOE. 


ii, 


':!''■  '%' 


t»-  II 
''  ll 
I»'lt 

rr- 

'•li.iji 

If;  M 
*'•■  i|iHi: 

•t.^iillil, 

«■•  i|'i:r 
t 

M  , 

n 

k 


paro  American  hoholinlc) ;  hurnholoza,  '  to  rumhlo  in  the 
bowels,  to  have  a  bowel-complaint ; '  bubuld, '  to  bmz  like 
boea,'  buhuleld,  'a  swarm  of  boea,  a  buzzing  crowd  of 
people  ; '  bubnliiza, '  to  make  a  blustering  noise,  like  froth- 
ing beer  or  boiling  fat.'  These  examples,  from  among 
those  given  under  one  initial  letter  in  one  dictionary  of  one 
barbaric  language,  may  give  an  idea  of  the  amount  of  the 
evidence  from  the  languages  of  the  lower  races  bearing  on 
the  present  problem. 

For  the  present  purpose  of  giving  a  brief  series  of  ex- 
amples of  the  soi"t  of  words  in  which  imitative  sound  seems 
fairly  traceable,  the  strongest  and  most  manageable  evidence 
is  of  course  found  among  such  words  as  directly  describe 
sounds  or  what  produces  them,  such  as  cries  of  and 
names  for  animals,  the  terms  for  action  accompanied  by 
sound,  and  the  materials  and  objects  so  acted  upon.  In 
further  investigation  it  becomes  more  and  more  requisite 
to  isolate  the  sound-type  or  root  from  the  modifications 
and  additions  to  which  it  has  been  subjected  for  gram- 
matical and  phonetical  adaptation.  It  will  serve  to  give 
an  idea  of  the  extent  and  intricacy  of  this  problem,  to 
glance  at  a  group  of  words  in  one  European  language, 
and  notice  the  etymological  network  which  spreads  round 
the  German  word  klapf,  in  Grimm's  dictionary,  A;ia/> 
peuyklippeu,  klopfen,  Idiiffen,  Idhiipern,  Havipern,  klateren, 
kloteren,  klltteren,  klatzen,  klacken,  and  more,  to  be 
matched  with  allied  forms  in  other  languages.  Setting 
aside  the  consideration  of  grammatical  inflexion,  it  be- 
longs to  the  present  subject  to  notice  that  man's  imita- 
tive faculty  in  language  is  by  no  means  limited  to  making 
direct  copies  of  sound  and  shaping  them  into  words.  It 
seizes  upon  ready-made  terms  of  whatever  origin,  alters 
and  adapts  them  to  make  their  sound  fitting  to  their 
sense,  and  pours  into  the  dictionaries  a  ilood  of  adapted 
words  of  which  the  most  difficult  to  analyse  ai'e  those 
which  are  neither  altogether  etymological  nor  altogether 
imitative,  but  partly  both.     How  words,  while  preserving, 


EMOTION'AI-    ANK    rMlTATlVE    LANaUAQE. 


215 


lo  in  ihu 
buzz  like 
crowd  of 
like  froth- 
in  among 
ary  of  one 
unt  of  tho 
)earing  on 

•ies  of  ex- 
und  seeniH 
e  evidence 
y  describe 
18    of  and 
paniod  by 
upon.    In 
a  requisite 
)difications 
for  gram- 
me to  give 
roblem,  to 
language, 
sads  round 
iry,   klaj)- 
i,klateren, 
:e,    to    be 
.     Setting 
)n,   it   be- 
n's imita- 
,0  making 
^rords.     It 
jin,  alters 
to  their 
■  adapted 
ai'e  those 
altogether 
•eserving, 


80  to  speak,  tho  name  skeleton,  may  be  made  to  follow 
the  variation  of  Hound,  of  force,  of  duration,  of  size, 
an  imitative  group  more  or  less  connected  with  the 
last  will  tihow—cnck,  creak,  crack,  crash,  crush,  crunch, 
cruunch,  scrunch,  scraunch.  It  does  not  at  all  follow 
that  because  a  word  suffers  such  imitative  and  symbolic 
changes  it  nmst  be,  like  this,  directly  imitative  in  its 
origin.  What,  for  instance,  could  sound  more  imitative 
than  the  name  of  that  old-fashioned  cannon  for  throwing 
grape-shot,  the  patterero  1  Yet  the  etymology  of  the  word 
appears  in  the  Spanish  form  jteilrero,  French  perrier ;  it 
means  simply  an  instrument  for  throwing  stones  (piedra, 
pierre),  and  it  was  only  when  tho  Spanish  word  was  adopted 
in  England  that  tho  imitative  faculty  caught  and  trans- 
formed it  into  an  appai'ent  sound- word,  resembling  the  verb 
to  patter.  The  propensity  of  language,  especially  in  slang, 
to  make  sense  of  strange  words  by  altering  them  into 
something  with  an  appropriate  meaning  has  been  often 
dwelt  upon  by  philologists,  but  the  propensity  to  alter  words 
into  something  with  an  appropriate  sound  has  produced 
results  immensely  more  important.  The  effects  of  symbolic 
change  of  sound  acting  upon  verb-roots  seem  almost  bound- 
less. Tho  verb  to  tvaddlc  has  a  strong  imitative  appearance, 
and  so  in  German  we  can  hardly  resist  tho  suggestion 
that  imitative  sound  has  to  do  with  the  difference  between 
wandern  and  tvandeln;  but  all  these  verba  belong  to  a 
family  represented  by  Sanskrit  vad,  to  go,  Latin  vado,  and  to 
this  root  there  seems  no  sufficient  ground  for  assigning  an 
imitative  origin,  the  traces  of  which  it  has  at  any  rate  lost 
if  it  ever  had  them.  Thus,  again,  to  stamp  with  the  foot, 
which  has  been  claimed  as  an  imitation  of  sound,  seems  only 
a  'coloured'  word.  The  root  tta,  'to  stand,'  Sanskrit 
sthd,  forms  a  causative  stajj,  Sanskrit  dhdpay,  *  to  make  to 
stand/  English  to  stop,  and  a  iooi-step  is  when  the  foot 
comes  to  a  stand,  a  foot-stop.  But  we  have  Anglo-Saxon 
btapan,  stcbpan,  steppan,  English  to  step,  varying  to  express 
its  meaning  by  sound  in  to  staup,  to  stamp,  to  stump,  and 


) 


216 


EMOTIONAL  AND  IMITATIVE  LANGUAGE. 


w 


,yi  k 


II  !r 


,Nii: 


tew  •III, 


•"''lii'lli 


to  stomp,  contrasting  in  their  violence  or  clumsy  weight 

with    the   foot    on   the    Dorset  cottage-sill — in   Barnes's 

poem  : — 

'  Where  love  do  seek  the  maiden's  evenen  vloor, 
Wi'  stip-step  light,  an  tip-tap  slight 

Agean  the  door.' 

By  expanding,  modifying,  or,  so  to  speak,  colouring, 
sound  is  able  to  produce  effects  closely  like  those  of  gesture- 
language,  expressing  length  or  shortness  of  time,  strength 
or  weakness  of  action,  and  then  passing  into  a  further  stage 
to  describe  greatness  or  smallness  of  size  or  of  distance, 
and  thence  making  its  way  into  the  widest  fields  of  metaphor. 
And  it  does  all  this  with  a  force  which  is  surprising  when 
we  consider  how  childishly  simple  are  the  means  employed. 
Thus  the  Bachapin  of  Africa  call  a  man  with  the  cry  he'la  ! 
but  according  as  he  is  far  or  farther  off  the  sound  of  the 
heela !  hi-e-la  !  is  lengthened  out.  Mr.  Macgregor  in  his 
'  Rob  Roy  on  the  Jordan,'  graphically  describes  this  method 
of  expression,  '"But  where  is  Zalmouda?"  .  .  .  Then 
with  rough  eagerness  the  strongest  of  the  Dowana  faction 
pushes  his  long  forefinger  forward,  pointing  straight  enough 
— but  whither  ?  and  with  a  volley  of  words  ends,  Ah-ah-a- 

a-a- a-a.     This   strange   expression    had    long    before 

puzzled  me  when  first  heard  from  a  shepherd  in  Bashan. 
.  .  .  But  the  simple  meaning  of  this  long  string  of  "  ah'a  " 
shortened,  and  quickened,  and  lowered  in  tone  to  the  end, 
is  merely  that  the  place  pointed  to  is  a  "  very  great  way 
off." '  The  Chinook  jargon,  as  usual  representing  primitive 
developments  of  language,  uses  a  similar  device  in  lengthen- 
ing the  sound  of  words  to  indicate  distance.  The  Siamese 
can,  by  varying  the  tone-accent,  make  the  syllable  non, 
'  there,'  express  a  near,  indefinite,  or  far  distance,  and  in 
like  manner  can  modify  the  meaning  of  such  a  word  as  ny, 
'little.'  In  the  Gaboon,  the  strength  with  which  such  a 
word  as  mpolu, '  great,'  is  uttered  serves  to  show  whether 
it  is  great,  very  great,  or  very  very  great,  and  in  this  way, 
as  Mr.  Wilson  remarks  in  his  Mpongwe  Grammar,  'the 


'Mii 

EMOTIONAL   AND   IMITATIVE   LANGUAGE. 


217 


isy  weight 
n   Barnes's 

vloor, 


colouring, 
of  gesture- 
le,  strength 
irther  stage 
)f  distance, 
if  metaphor, 
ising  when 
i  employed, 
e  cry  he'la  ! 
und  of  the 
egor  in  his 
;his  method 
.  .  .  Then 
ana  faction 
ght  enough 
3 J  Ah-ah-a- 
)ng    before 
in  Bashan. 
;of  "a/i's" 
to  the  end, 
great  way 
g  primitive 
a  lengthen- 
he  Siamese 
lable  non, 
ice,  and  in 
vord  &Bny, 
Lch  such  a 
w  whether 
this  way, 
amar,  'the 


comparative  degrees  of  greatness,  smalbiess,  hardness, 
rapidity,  and  strength,  &c.,  may  be  conveyed  with  more 
accuracy  and  precision  than  could  readily  be  conceived.' 
In  Madagascar  ratchl  means  '  bad,'  but  rdtchi  is  '  very 
bad.'  The  natives  of  Australia,  according  to  Oldfield, 
show  the  use  of  this  process  in  combination  with  that  of 
symbolic  reduplication :  among  the  Watchandie  tnhejir-rie 
signifies  '  already  or  past,'  jir-ne  jir-He  indicates  '  a  long 
time  ago,'  while  Jle-r-rie  j'irrle  (the  first  syllable  being 
dwelt  on  for  some  time)  signifies  *an  immense  time  ago.' 
Again,  hoo-rie  is  '  small,'  hoo-rie-hoo-He  '  very  small,'  and 
h-o-rie  hoorie  '  exceedingly  small.'  Wilhelm  von  Humboldt 
notices  the  habit  of  the  southern  Guarani  dialect  of  South 
America  of  dwelling  more  or  less  time  on  the  suffix  of  the 
j:«rfect  tense,  yma,  y — mu,  to  indicate  the  length  or  short- 
ness of  the  distance  of  time  at  which  the  action  took  place ; 
and  it  is  curious  to  observe  that  a  similar  contrivance  is 
made  use  of  among  the  aboriginal  tribes  of  India,  where  the 
Ho  language  forms  a  future  tense  by  adding  d  to  the  root, 
and  prolonging  its  sound,  hajee  'to  speak,'  Amg  kajeea 
*I  will  speak.'  As  might  be  expected,  the  languages  of 
very  rude  tribes  show  extremely  well  how  the  results  of  such 
primitive  processes  pass  into  the  recognized  stock  of 
language.  Nothing  could  be  better  for  this  than  the  words 
by  which  one  of  the  rudest  of  living  races,  the  Botocudos  of 
Brazil,  express  the  sea.  They  have  a  word  for  a  stream, 
owaiou,  and  an  adjective  which  means  great,  ijipakijiou ; 
thence  the  two  words  '  stream-great,'  a  little  strengthened 
in  the  vowels,  will  give  the  term  for  a  river,  ouatou- 
iJiipaJciiiJou,  as  it  were,  '  stream-grea-at,'  and  this,  to 
express  the  immensity  of  the  ocean,  is  amplified  into  ouatou- 
iijipakiijou-ou-ou-ou-ou-ou.  Another  tribe  of  the  same 
family  works  out  the  same  result  more  simply ;  the  word 
ouatou,  'stream,'  becomes  ouatou-ou-ou-ou, '  the  sea.'  The 
Chav  antes  very  naturally  stretch  the  expression  rom-o-wodi, 
'  I  go  a  long  way,'  into  rom-o-o-o-o-wodi,  '  I  go  a  very 
long  way  indeed,'  and  when  they  are  called  upon  to  count 


J 


I 


>V'  :    f 


218 


EMOTIONAL   AND   IMITATIVE   LANGUAGE. 


m^'' 


beyond  five  they  say  it  is  ka-o-o-okl,  by  which  they  evidently 
mean  it  is  a  very  great  many.  The  Cauixanas  in  one 
vocabulary  are  described  as  saying  latuauugabi  for  four,  and 
di'awling  out  the  same  word  for  five,  as  if  to  say  a  '  long 
four,'  in  somewhat  the  same  way  as  the  Aponegicrans, 
whose  word  for  six  is  itaivitna,  can  expand  this  into  a  word 
for  seven,  itauuicna,  obviously  thus  meaning  a  '  long  six.' 
In  their  earlier  and  simpler  stages  nothing  can  be  more 
easy  to  comprehend  than  these,  so  to  speak,  pictorial 
modifications  of  words.  It  is  true  that  writing,  even  with 
the  aid  of  italics  and  capitals,  ignores  much  of  this  sym- 
bolism in  spoken  langjiage,  but  every  child  can  see  its  use 
and  meaning,  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  book-learning  and 
school-teaching  to  set  aside  whatever  cannot  be  expressed 
by  their  imperfect  symbols,  nor  controlled  by  their  narrow 
rules.  But  when  we  try  to  follow  out  to  their  full  results 
these  methods,  at  first  so  easy  to  trace  and  appreciate,  we 
soon  find  them  passing  out  of  our  grasp.  The  language  of 
the  Sahaptin  Indians  shows  us  a  process  of  modifying 
words  which  is  far  from  clear,  and  yet  not  utterly  obscure. 
These  Indians  have  a  way  of  making  a  kind  of  disrespectful 
diminutive  by  changing  the  n  in  a  word  to  I ;  thus  twinwt 
means  '  tailless,'  but  to  indicate  particular  smallness,  or  to 
express  contempt,  they  make  this  into  ttvlhvt,  pronounced 
with  an  appropriate  change  of  tone ;  and  again,  ivana  means 
'  river,'  but  this  is  made  into  a  diminutive  ivala  by  '  chang- 
ing a  into  I,  giving  the  voice  a  different  tone,  putting  the 
lips  out  in  speaking,  and  keeping  them  suspended  around 
the  jaw.'  Here  we  are  told  enough  about  the  change  of 
pronunciation  to  guess  at  least  how  it  could  convey  the 
notions  of  smallness  and  contempt.  But  it  is  less  easy  to 
follow  the  process  by  which  the  Mpongwe  language  turns 
an  affirmative  into  a  negative  verb  by '  an  intonation  upon, 
or  prolongation  of  the  radical  vowel,'  Wnda,  to  love,  tSnda, 
not  to  love ;  tSndo,  to  be  loved,  tdndo,  not  to  be  loved.  So 
Yoruba,  bdba,  '  a  great  thing,'  hdba,  '  a  small  thing,'  con- 
trasted in  a  proverb,  ^ Baba  bo,  baha  moUe' — 'A  great 


EMOTIONAL   AND  IMITATIVE   LANGUAGE. 


319 


evidently 
,s  in  one 
four,  and 
y  a  '  long 
legicrans, 
bo  a  word 
long  six.' 
be  more 
pictorial 
)ven  with 
this  sym- 
3e  its  use 
ning  and 
expressed 
ir  narrow 
ill  results 
Bciate,  we 
Dguage  of 
nodifying 
1  obscure, 
i-espectful 
IS  twinwt 
Less,  or  to 
onounced 
na  means 
y '  chang- 
tting  the 
d  around 
ihange  of 
nvey  the 
iS  easy  to 
ige  turns 
on  upon, 
e,  tSnda, 
ved.     So 
ng,'  con- 
A  great 


matter  puts  a  smaller  out  of  sight.'  Language  is,  in  fact, 
fuU  of  phonetic  modifications  which  justify  a  suspicion  that 
symbolic  sound  had  to  do  with  their  production,  though  it 
may  be  hard  to  say  exactly  how. 

Again,  there  is  the  familiar  process  of  reduplication,  simple 
or  modified,  which  produces  such  forms  as  niurrriur,  pitpat, 
helter skelter.  This  action,  though  much  restricted  in  literary 
dialects,  has  such  immense  scope  in  the  talk  of  children 
and  savages  that  Professor  Pott's  treatise  on  it  ^  has  become 
incidentally  one  of  the  most  valuable  collections  of  facts  ever 
made  with  relation  to  early  stages  of  language.  Now  up  to  a 
certain  point  any  child  can  see  how  and  why  such  doubling  is 
done,  and  how  it  always  adds  something  to  the  original  idea. 
It  may  make  superlatives  or  otherwise  intensify  words,  as  in 
Polynesia  loii  '  long,'  lololoa  '  very  long ' ;  Mandingo  ding 
'a  child,'  dingding  ' a  very  little  child.'  It  makes  plurals, 
as  Malay  raja-raja  'princes,'  orang-orang  'people.'  It 
adds  numerals,  as  Mosquito  ^valwal  'four'  (two-two),  or 
distributes  them,  as  Coptic  ouai  ouai  'singly'  (one-one). 
These  are  cases  where  the  motive  of  doubling  is  comparatively 
easy  to  make  out.  As  an  example  of  cases  much  more  diffi- 
cult to  comprehend  may  be  taken  the  familiar  reduplication 
of  the  perfect  tense,  Greek  yiypa(^a  from  ypdcfja,  Latin 
tnomordi  from  mordeo,  Gothic  haihald  from  haldan,  'to 
hold.'  Reduplication  is  habitually  used  in  imitative  words 
to  intensify  them,  and  still  more,  to  show  that  the  found  is 
repeated  or  continuous.  From  the  immense  mass  of  such 
words  we  may  take  as  instances  the  Botocudo  hou-hou-hou- 
gitcha  'to  suck'  (compare  Tongan  huku  ' breast '),  ^•^aA;^^- 
kdck-kdcJc  '  a  butterfly ' ;  Quichua  chiwiuiuiilichi  '  wind 
whistling  in  the  trees ' ;  Maori  haruru  '  noise  of  wind ' ; 
hohoro  '  hurry ' ;  Dayak  kakalchaka  '  to  go  on  laughjng 
loud ' ;  Aino  shirkishiriukanni '  a  rasp ' ;  Tamil  'niururtiuru 
'  to  murmur ' ;  Akra  etviewietviewie  '  he  spoke  repeatedly 

•  Pott,  '  Doppolung  (Keduplication,  Gemination)  als  eines  der  wichtig- 
sten  Bildungsinittel  der  Sprache,'  1862.  Frequent  use  has  been  here  made 
of  this  work. 


:^ 


Kt 


220 


EMOTIONAL  AND   IMITATIVE  LANGUAGE. 


mi 


t 


•^  lit)! 

1; 


and  continually ';  and  so  on,  throughout  the  whole  range  of 
the  languages  of  the  world. 

The  device  of  conveying  different  ideas  of  distance  by  the 
use  of  a  graduated  scale  of  vowels  seems  to  me  one  of  great 
philological  interest,  from  the  suggestive  hint  it  gives  of  the 
proceedings  of  the  language-makers  in  most  distant  regions 
of  the  world,  working  out  in  various  ways  a  similar  ingenious 
contrivance  of  expression  by  sound.  A  typical  series  is 
the  Javan :  iki  '  this '  (close  by) ;  ika  '  that '  (at  some 
distance) ;  iku  '  that '  (farther  off).  It  ifc.  not  likely  that 
the  following  list  nearly  exhausts  the  whole  number  of  cases 
in  the  languages  o+'  the  world,  for  about  half  the  number 
have  been  incidentally  noted  down  by  myself  without  any 
especial  search,  but  merely  in  the  course  of  looking  over 
vocabularies  of  the  lower  races  ^ 

Javan      .         .        .    iki,  this  ;  ika,  that  (intermediate)  ;  iku,  that. 
Malagasy         .        .    ao,  there  (at  a  short  distance) ;  eo,  there  (at  a 

shorter  distance) ;  io,  there  (close  at  hand). 
atsy,  there  (not  far  off)  ;  etsy,  there  (nearer) ; 
itsij,  this  or  these. 
Japanese  .        .        .    ko,  here  ;  ka,  there. 

korera,  these  ;  karera,  they  (those). 
Canarese  .        .        .    /mm<,  this;  jffrtMw,  that  (intermediate);  avanu, 

that. 
Tamul      .        .        .     f,  this ;  d,  that. 
Rajmahali        .        .     (h,  this  ;  dh,  that. 
Dhimal    .        .        .    isho,  ita,  here ;  usho,  uta,  there. 

iti,  idong,  this  ;  uti,  tidong,  that  [of  things  and 
persons  respectively]. 
Abchasian        .        .     abri,  this  ;  ubri,  that. 
Ossetic     .        .        .     am,  here ;  pm,  there. 
Magyar    .        .        .    es,  this ;  az,  that. 
Zulu         .        .        .     npa,  here ;  apo,  there. 

lesi,  leso,   lesiya;   abu,  abo,  abiiya ;    &c.=this, 
that,  that  (in  the  distance). 

•  For  authorities  see  especially  Pott,  '  Doppelung,'  p.  30,  47-49  ;  W.  v. 
Humboldt,  '  Kawi-Spr.'  vol.  ii.  p.  36  ;  Max  Miiller  in  Bunsen,  '  Philos.  of 
Univ.  Hist.'  vol.  i.  p.  329  ;  Latham,  '  Comp.  Phil.*  p.  200 ;  and  the  gram- 
mars and  dictionaries  of  the  particular  languages.  The  Guarani  and  Carib 
on  authority  of  D'Orbigny,  '  L'Homme  Americain,'  vol.  ii.  p.  26.'<  ;  Dhimal 
of  Hodgson,  'Abor.  of  India,'  p.  60,  79,  115  ;  Colville  Ind.  of  Wilson  in 
'Tr.  Eth.Soc'  vol.  iv.  p.  331  ;  Botocudo  of  Martius,  'Gloss.  Brasil.' 


EMOTIONAL  AND   IMITATIVE   LANOUAQE. 


221 


le  range  of 

tnce  by  the 
ne  of  great 
[ives  of  the 
mt  regions 
r  ingenious 
il  series  is 
(at  some 
likely  that 
)er  of  cases 
he  number 
ithout  any 
)king  over 

;  iku,  that. 
,  there  (at  a 
e  at  hand), 
ire  (nearer) ; 


ate);  avanu, 


things  and 


&c.=this, 


17-49  ;  W.  V. 
'  Philos.  of 
d  the  gram- 
ni  and  Carib 
16  s  ;  Dhimal 
of  Wilson  io 
nsil.' 


Yoruba    .        .        .    na,  this ;  ni,  that. 
Fernandian     .        .    olo,  this ;  ole,  that. 
Tumale    .        .        .    re,  this ;  fi,  that. 

ngi,  I ;  ngo,  thou  ;  ngii,  he. 
Greenlandish  .        .    tiv,  here,  there  (where  one  points  to) ;  iv,  there, 

up  there  [found  in  comp.]. 
Sujelpa(ColvilleInd.),  axa,  this ;  ixi,  that. 


Sahaptin 
Mutsun    . 
Tarahumara 
Guarani  . 
Botocudo 
Carib 
Ghihan    . 


kina,  here ;  kuna,  there. 

ne,  here  ;  nu,  there. 

ibe,  here  ;  abe,  there. 

nde,  ne,  thou  ;  ndi,  ni,  he. 

ati,  I ;  oti,  thou,  you,  (prep.)  to. 

ne,  thou  ;  ni,  he. 

tva,  vachi,  this  ;  tvei/,  veijchi,  that. 


It  is  obvious  on  inspection  of  this  list  of  pronouns  and 
adverbs  that  they  have  in  some  way  come  to  have  their 
vowels  contrasted  to  match  the  contrast  of  here  and  there,  this 
and  that.  Accident  may  sometimes  account  for  such  cases. 
For  instance  it  is  well  known  to  philologists  that  our  own 
tills  and  that  are  pronouns  partly  distinct  in  their  fonuation, 
this  being  probably  two  pronouns  run  together,  but  yet  the 
Dutch  neuters  dit  'this,'  and  did  'that,'  have  taken  the 
appearance  of  a  single  form  with  contrasted  vowels.^  But 
accident  cannot  account  for  the  frequency  of  such  words  in 
pairs,  and  even  in  sets  of  three,  in  so  many  different  lan- 
guages. There  must  have  been  some  common  intention  at 
worK,  and  there  is  evidence  that  some  of  these  languages  do 
resort  to  a  change  of  sound  as  a  means  of  expressing  change 
of  distance.  Thus  the  language  of  Fernando  Po  can  not 
only  express  '  this '  and  '  that '  by  olo,  ole,  but  it  can  even 
make  a  change  of  the  pronunciation  of  the  vowel  distinguish 
between  o  hoehe  'this  month,'  and  oh  hoehe,  'that  month.' 
In  the  same  way  the  Grebo  can  make  the  difference  between 
'I'  and  'thou,'  'we,'  and  'you,'  'solely  by  the  intona- 
tion of  the  voice,  which  the  final  h  of  the  second  persons 
'nidh  and  dh  is  intended  to  express.' 

md  di,  I  eat ;  mdh  di,  thou  eatest ; 
a  di,  we  eat;  ah  di,  ye  eat. 

'  Also  Old  High  German  dis  .ud  da:. 


<»)i 


'"ris^ 


■t  ■ 


222 


EMOTIONAL   AND   IMITATIVE   LANOUAOE. 


tl 


11!^:' 


The  set  of  Zulu  demonstratives  which  express  the  three 
distances  of  near,  farther,  farthest,  are  very  complex,  but  a 
remark  as  to  their  use  shows  how  thoroughly  symbolic 
sound  enters  into  their  nature.  The  Zulus  not  only  say 
nansi,  'here  is,'  nanso,  "there  is,'  nandya,  'there  is  in 
the  distance,'  but  they  even  express  the  greatness  of  this 
distance  by  the  emphasis  and  prolongation  of  the  y<(.  If  we 
could  discern  a  similar  gradation  of  the  vowels  to  express  a 
corresponding  gradation  of  distance  throughout  our  list,  the 
whole  matter  would  be  easier  to  explain  ;  but  it  is  not  so, 
the  t-words,  for  instance,  are  sometimes  nearer  and  some- 
times farther  off  than  the  a-words.  We  can  only  judge  that, 
as  even  children  can  see  that  a  scale  of  vowels  makes  a  most 
expressive  scale  of  distances,  many  pronouns  and  adverbs  in 
use  in  the  world  have  probably  taken  their  shape  under  the 
influence  of  this  simple  device,  and  thus  there  have  arisen 
sets  of  what  we  may  call  contrasted  or  '  differential ' 
words. 

How  the  differencing  of  words  by  change  of  vowels  may 
be  used  to  distinguish  between  the  sexes,  is  well  put  in 
a  remark  of  Professor  Max  MuUer's :  '  The  distinction 
of  gender  ...  is  sometimes  expressed  in  such  a  manner 
that  we  can  only  explain  it  by  ascribing  an  expressive 
power  to  the  more  or  less  obscure  sound  of  vowels.  Ukko, 
in  Finnic,  is  an  old  man;  akka,  an  old  woman  ...  In 
Mandshu  chacha  is  mas.  .  .  .  cheche,  femina.  Again,  awuir, 
in  Mandshu,  is  father  ;  erne,  mother ;  amcha,  father-in-law. 
emche,  mother-in-law.'  ^  The  Coretd  language  of  Brazil 
has  another  curiously  contrasted  pair  of  words  tsdacko, 
'  father,'  tsaacko  '  mother,'  while  the  Carib  has  haha 
for  father,  and  hibi  for  mother,  and  the  Ibu  of  Africa  has 
nna  for  father  and  nne  for  mother.  This  contrivance  of 
distinguishing  the  male  from  the  female  by  a  difference  of 
vowels  is  however  but  a  small  part  of  the  process  of  for- 
mation which  can  be  traced  among  such  words  as  those 
for  father  and   mother.     Their  consideration   leads    into 

'  Max  Miiller.  1.  c. 


the  three 
•lex,  but  a 

symbolic 
i  only  say 
here  is  in 
2SS  of  this 
H(.  If  we 
I  express  a 
ur  list,  the 

is  not  so, 
md  some- 
lulgo  that, 
ces  a  most 
adverbs  in 
under  the 
ave  arisen 
fferential ' 

)weis  may 
11  put  in 
istinction 
a  manner 
xpressive 
Ukko, 

...  In 
ain,  ama, 
3r-in-law. 
of  Brazil 

tsdacko, 
las  baba 
frica  has 
ivance  of 
'erence  of 
iS  of  for- 
as  those 
ads    into 


!i'  : 


EMOTIONAL   AND   IMITATIVE    LANGUAGE. 


223 


a  very  interesting  philological  region,  that  of  '  Children's 
Language.' 

If  we  set  down  a  few  of  the  pairs  of  words  which  stand  f 
for  '  father '  and  '  mother '  in  very  different  and  distant 
languages — papa  and  mama  j  Welsh,  tad  (dad)  and  mam ; 
Hungarian,  atya  and  anya  ;  Mandingo,  fa  and  ba  ;  Lummi 
(N,  America),  man  and  tan  ;  Catoquina  (S.  America),  payA 
and  nayii ;  Watchandie  (Australia),  amc»  and  a(/o — their 
contrast  seems  to  lie  in  their  consonants,  while  many  other 
pairs  differ  totally,  like  Hebrew  ab  and  im  ;  Kuki,  p'ha  and 
noo;  Kayan,  amay  and  inei .  Tarahumara,  nono  andj/e/'e. 
Words  of  the  class  oi  paj)a  and  mama,  occurring  in  remote 
parts  of  the  world,  were  once  freely  used  as  evidence  of  a 
common  origin  of  the  languages  in  which  they  were  found 
alike.  But  Professor  Buschmann's  paper  on  'Nature- 
Sound,'  published  in  1853,^  effectually  overthrew  this 
argument,  and  settled  the  view  that  such  coincidences 
might  arise  again  and  again  by  independent  production. 
It  was  clearly  of  no  use  to  argue  that  Carib  and  English 
were  allied  because  the  word  papa,  'father,'  belongs  to 
both,  or  Hottentot  and  English  because  both  use  mama  for 
'  mother,'  seeing  that  these  childish  articulations  may  be 
used  in  just  the  opposite  way,  for  the  Chilian  word  for  / 
mother  is  papa,  and  the  Tlatskanai  for  father  is  mama. 
Yet  the  choice  of  easy  little  words  for  '  father '  and 
'  mother '  does  not  seem  to  have  been  quite  indiscriminate. 
The  immense  list  of  such  words  collected  by  Buschmann 
shows  that  the  types  pa  and  ta,  with  the  similar  forms  ap 
and  at,  preponderate  in  the  world  as  names  for  'father,' 
v;hile  ma  and  na,  am  and  an,  preponderate  as  names  for 
■  mother.'  His  explanation  of  this  state  of  things  as 
affected  by  direct  symbolism  choosing  the  hard  sound  for  the 
father,  and  the  gentler  for  the  mother,  has  very  likely  truth 
in  it,  but  it  must  not  be  pushed  too  far.     It  cannot  be,  for 

^  J.  C.  E.  Buschmann,  '  uobor  den  Naturlaut,'  Berlin,  1853  ;  and  in 
*  Abh.  der  K.  Akad.  d.  Wissenscli.'  1852.  An  English  trans,  in  'Proc.  Philo- 
logical Society,'  vol.  vi.     Seo  De  Brosses,  '  Form,  des  L.,'  vol.  i.  p.  211. 


\  . 


■"^ 


■  ■  r 


;Vi 


,F1 


rum 


224 


EMOTIONAL   AND  IMITATIVE   LANGUAGE. 


WB 


-M 


lb. 

t; 


instance,  the  same  principle  of  symbolism  which  leads  the 
Welshman  to  say  tad  for  '  father '  and  mam  for  *  mother/ 
and  the  Indian  of  British  Columbia  to  say  maan, '  father ' 
and  taan,  'mother/  or  the  Georgian  to  say  mama,  'father' 
and  deda,  '  mother.'  Yet  I  have  not  succeeded  in  finding 
anywhere  our  familiar  papa  and  mama  exactly  reversed  in 
one  and  the  same  language ;  the  nearest  approach  to  it 
that  I  can  give  is  from  the  island  of  Meang,  where  mama 
meant  'father,  man,'  and  hahi,  'mother,  woman.* ^ 

Between  the  nursery  words  pa^?«  and  mama  and  the  more 
formal  father  and  mother  there  is  an  obvious  resemblance  in 
sound.  What,  then,  is  the  origin  of  these  words  father  and 
mother  ?  Up  to  a  certain  point  their  history  is  clear.  They 
belong  to  the  same  group  of  organized  words  with  vater  and 
m,\dter, pater  and  mater,  irariip  and  /x'r'/P.  pitor  and  mdtar,  and 
other  similar  forms  through  the  Indo-European  family  of 
languages.  There  is  no  doubt  that  all  these  pairs  of  names 
are  derived  from  an  ancient  and  common  Aryan  source,  and 
when  they  are  traced  back  as  far  as  possible  towai'ds  that 
source,  they  appear  to  have  sprung  from  a  pair  of  words 
which  may  be  roughly  called  patar  and  matar,  and  which 
were  formed  by  adding  tar,  the  suffix  of  the  actor,  to  the 
verb-roots  pa  and  ma.  There  being  two  appropriate  Sanskrit 
verbs  pd  and  md,  it  is  possible  to  etymologize  the  two  words 
as  patar,  '  protector/  and  matar,  '  producer.'  Now  this 
pair  of  Aryan  words  must  have  been  very  ancient,  lying  back 
at  the  remote  common  source  from  which  forms  parallel  to 
our  English  father  and  mother  passed  into  Greek  and 
Persian,  Norse  and  Armenian,  thus  holding  fixed  type 
through  the  eventful  course  of  Indo-European  history.  Yet, 
ancient  as  these  words  are,  they  were  no  doubt  preceded 
by  simpler  rudimentary  words  of  the  children's  language, 
for  it  is  not  likely  that  the  primitive  Aryans  did  without 
baby-words  for  father  and  mother  until  they  had  an 
organized  system  of  adding  suffixes  to  verb-roots  to  express 

'  One  family  of  languages,  the  Athapascan,  contains  both  appd  and  mama 
as  terms  for  '  father,'  in  the  Tahkali  and  Tlatskanai. 


9i(r 


leads  the 
■  *  mother/ 
n, '  father ' 
1, '  father ' 
in  finding 
■eversed  in 
oach  to  it 
ere  mama 

d  the  more 

nblance  in 

father  and 

ear.    They 

1  vater  and 

mdtar,  and 

family  of 

8  of  names 

source,  and 

^^ai'ds  that 

•  of  words 

and  which 

itor,  to  the 

e  Sanskrit 

two  words 

Now  this 

ying  back 

parallel  to 

reek  and 

ixed  type 

ory.    Yet, 

preceded 

language, 

d  without 

had   an 

to  express 

ipii  and  mama 


EMOTIONAL  AND  IMITATIVE  LANOUAOE. 


225 


such  notions  as  'protector*  or  'producer.'  Nor  can  it 
be  supposed  that  it  was  by  mere  n  rident  that  the  root- 
words  thus  chosen  happened  to  be  the  very  sounds  pa  and 
ma,  whose  types  so  often  occur  in  the  remotest  parts  of  the 
world  as  names  for  '  father '  and  '  mother.'  Prof.  Adolphe 
Pictet  makes  shift  to  account  for  the  coincidence  thus :  he 
postulates  first  the  pair  of  forms  pd  and  md  as  Aryan  verb- 
roots  of  unknown  origin,  meaning  'to  protect'  and  'to 
create,'  nexc  another  pair  of  forms  /Jtt  and  ma,  children's 
words  commonly  used  to  denote  father  and  mother,  and 
lastly  he  combines  the  two  by  supposing  that  the  root- 
verbs  pd  and  md  were  chosen  to  form  the  Indo-European 
words  for  parents,  because  of  their  resemblance  to  the 
familiar  baby-words  already  in  use.  This  circuitous  pro- 
cess at  any  rate  saves  those  sacred  monosyllables,  the 
Sanskrit  verb-roots,  from  the  disgrace  of  an  assignable 
origin.  Yet  those  who  remember  that  these  verb-roots  are 
only  a  set  of  crude  forms  in  use  in  one  particular  language 
of  the  world  at  one  particular  period  of  its  development, 
may  account  for  the  facts  more  simply  and  more  thoroughly. 
It  is  a  fair  guess  that  the  ubiquitous  pa  and  ma  of  the 
children's  language  were  the  original  forms ;  that  they  were 
used  in  an  early  period  of  Aryan  speech  as  indiscriminately 
substantive  and  verb,  just  as  our  modem  English,  which  so 
often  reproduces  the  most  rudimentary  linguistic  processes, 
can  form  from  the  noun  *  father  *  a  verb  '  to  father ; '  and 
that  lastly  they  became  verb-roots,  whence  the  words 
patar  and  matar  were  formed  by  the  addition  of  the 
suffix.^ 

The  baby-names  for  parents  must  not  be  studied  as  though 
they  stood  alone  in  language.  They  are  only  important 
members  of  a  great  class  of  words,  belonging  to  all  times 
and  countries  within  our  experience,  and  forming  a  chil- 
dren's language,  whose  common  character  is  due  to  its  con- 

»  See  Pott,  *  Indo-Ger.  WurzelwOrterb.'  s.  v.  '  pi ' ;  BOhtlingk  and  Roth, 
' Sanskrit- Wdrterb.*  s.  v.  mdtar;  Pictet,  'Origines  Indo-Europ.,'  part  ii. 
p.  349  ;  Max  Miiller,  '  Lectures,'  2nd  series,  p.  212. 

VOL.  I.  Q 


r 


4'  '  * 


i'i 


iiili;' 


226 


EMOTIONAL  AND  IMITATIVE  LANQUAQE. 


lit! 
I 

•'lull;.; 

S11'"'»ii'" 


t 


-it:" 


C 

•"■■  f 

I 

t 

f 

ft.'. 


m 


cerning  itself  with  the  limited  sot  of  ideas  in  which  little 
children  are  interested,  and  expressing  these  ideas  by  the 
limited  set  of  articulations  suited  to  the  child's  first  attempts 
to  talk.  This  peculiar  language  is  marked  quite  character- 
istically among  the  low  savage  tribes  of  Australia ;  mamvian 
'father,'  ngangan  'mother,'  and  by  metaphor  'thumb,' 
'  great  toe '  (as  is  more  fully  explained  in  Jinnamamman 
'great  toe,'  i.e.  foot's  father),  tamviin  'grandfather  or 
grandmother,'  bab-ha  'bad,  foolish,  childish,'  beehee,  heep 
•breast,'  pappi  'father,'  pappa  'young  one,  pup,  whelp,* 
(whence  is  grammatically  formed  the  \erh  papparniti '  to  bo- 
come  a  young  one,  to  bo  born.*  Or  if  we  look  for  examples 
from  India,  it  does  not  matter  whether  wo  take  them  from 
non-Hindu  or  Hindu  languages,  for  in  baby-language  all 
races  are  on  one  footing.  Thus  Tamil  appd  'father,* 
ainfiTtid  'mother,'  Bodo  aphd  'father,'  dyd  'mother;'  the 
Kocch  group  ndnd  and  ndni  'paternal  grandfather  and 
grandmother,'  mdmd  'undo,'  dddd  'cousin,'  may  be  set 
beside  Sanskrit  tata  '  father,'  nand  '  mother,'  and  the 
Hindustani  words  of  the  same  class,  of  which  some  are 
familiar  to  the  English  ear  by  being  naturalized  in  Anglo- 
Indian  talk,  bdhd  'father,'  bdbli  'child,  prince,  Mr.,'  bibi 
'  lady,'  dadd  '  nurse '  (dyd  '  nurse '  seems  borrowed  from 
Portuguese).  Such  words  are  continually  coming  fresh  into 
existence  everywhere,  and  the  law  of  natural  selection 
determines  their  fate.  The  great  mass  of  the  nana's  and 
dada's  of  the  nursery  die  out  almost  as  soon  as  made. 
Some  few  take  more  root  and  spread  over  large  districts  as 
accepted  nursery  words,  and  now  and  then  a  curious 
philologist  makes  a  collection  of  them.  Of  such,  many  are 
obvious  mutilations  of  longer  words,  as  French  faire  dodo 
'to  sleep'  (dormii'),  Brandenburg  wiwi,  a  common  cradle 
lullaby  (wiegen).  Others,  whatever  their  origin,  fall,  in 
consequence  of  the  small  variety  of  articulations  out  of 
which  they  must  be  chosen,  into  a  curiously  indiscriminate 
and  unmeaning  mass,  as  Swiss  bobo  '  a  scratch ; '  banibam 
'all    gone;'    Italian    bohb    'something    to    drink,'    gogo 


rhich  little 
jas  by  the 
it  attempts 
character- 
maviman 

'  'thumb,* 
miamman 
ifather   or 
e-bee,  heep 
p,  whelp,' 
niti '  to  bo- 
r  examples 
them  from 
nguage  all 
i   'father,' 
ither;'  the 
father  and 
ay  be  set 
'  and  the 
some  are 
in  Anglo- 
Mr.;  hibi 
wed  from 
l  fresh  into 
selection 
ana's  and 
as  made, 
istricts  as 
a   curious 
many  are 
faire  dodo 
ion  cradle 
fall,  in 
ns  out  of 
3criminate 
bambain 
nk,'    gogo 


1 


EMOTTONAIi   AND   IMITATIVE   LANGUAOB. 


227 


'  little  boy,'  far  dede  '  to  play.'  These  are  words  quoted 
by  Pott,  and  for  English  examples  nana  'nurse,'  iata/ 
*  good-bye ! '  may  serve.  But  all  baby-words,  as  this  very 
name  proves,  do  not  stop  short  even  at  this  stage  of  pub- 
licity. A  small  proportion  of  them  establish  themselves  in 
the  ordinary  talk  of  grown-up  men  and  women,  end  when 
they  have  once  made  good  their  place  as  constituents  of 
general  language,  they  may  pass  on  by  inheritance  from  age 
to  age.  Such  examples  as  have  been  here  quoted  of  nursery 
words  give  a  clue  to  the  origin  of  a  mass  of  names  in  the 
most  diverse  languages,  for  father,  mother,  grandmother, 
aunt,  child,  breast,  toy,  doll,  &c.  The  negro  of  Fernando 
Po  who  uses  the  word  bubboh  for  '  a  little  boy,'  is  on  equal 
terms  with  the  German  who  uses  bube ;  the  Congo-man  who 
uses  tata  for  'father'  would  understand  how  the  same 
word  could  be  used  in  classic  Latin  for  'father,'  and 
in  mediaeval  Latin  for  'pedagogue;'  the  Carib  and  the 
Caroline  Islan  Jer  agree  with  the  Englishman  that  papa  is 
a  suitable  word  to  express  'father,'  and  then  it  only 
remains  to  carry  on  the  word,  and  make  the  baby-language 
name  the  priests  of  the  Eastern  Church  and  the  great 
Papa  of  the  Western.  At  the  same  time  the  evidence 
explains  the  indifference  with  which,  out  of  the  small  stock 
of  available  materials,  the  same  sound  does  duty  for  the 
most  different  ideas ;  why  mama  means  here  '  mother,' 
there  'father,'  there  'uncle,'  maman  here  'mother,'  there 
'father-in-law,'  dada  here  'father,'  there  'nurse,'  there 
'breast,'  tata  here  'father,'  there  'son.'  A  single  group 
of  words  may  serve  to  show  this  character  of  this  peculiar 
region  of  language:  Blackfoot  Indian  ninnah  'father;' 
Greek  vtvvoi  'uncle,'  vivi>a  'aunt;'  Zulu  nina^  Sangir 
nina,  Malagasy  nini  'mother;'  Javan  nini  'grandfather 
or  grandmother;'  Vayu  nini  'paternal  aunt;'  Darien 
Indian  ninah  '  daughter ; '  Spanish  nine,  nina  '  child ; ' 
Italian  ninna  '  little  girl ; '  Milanese  ninin  '  bed ; '  Italian 
ninnare  '  to  rock  the  cradle.' 
In  this  way  a  dozen  easy  child's  articulations,  ba's  and 

Q  2 


-•I  'i 


228 


EMOTIONAL   AND    IMITATIVE   LANOUAOE. 


to* 


f 

k 

It 


W«, <i'«  andf/c'«,  pas  and  9?u('w,  Hervc  almost  bh  iudiscrimU 
nately  to  cxpross  a  dozon  child'H  ideas  an  though  they  had 
been  Hhakcn  in  a  bag  and  pulled  out  at  random  to  exprewH 
the  notion  that  canio  first,  doll  or  uncle,  nurse  or  grand- 
father. It  is  obvious  that  among  words  cramped  to  such 
scanty  choice  of  articulate  sounds,  speculations  as  to  deriva- 
tion must  be  more  than  usually  unsafe.  Looked  at  from 
this  point  of  view,  children's  language  may  give  a  valuable 
lesson  to  the  philologist.  He  has  before  him  a  kind  of 
language,  formed  under  peculiar  conditions,  and  showing  the 
weak  points  of  his  method  of  philological  research,  only 
exaggerated  into  extraordinary  distinctness.  In  ordinary 
language,  the  difficulty  of  connecting  sound  with  sense  lies 
in  great  measure  in  the  inability  of  a  small  and  rigid  set  of 
articulations  to  express  an  interminable  variety  of  tones  and 
noises.  In  children's  language,  a  still  more  scanty  set  of 
articulations  fails  yet  more  to  render  these  distinctly.  The 
difficulty  of  finding  the  derivation  of  words  lies  in  great 
measure  in  the  use  of  more  or  loss  similar  root-sounds  for 
most  heterogeneous  purposes.  To  assume  that  two  words 
of  different  meanings,  just  because  they  sound  somewhat 
alike,  must  therefore  have  a  common  origin,  is  even  in 
ordinary  language  the  great  source  of  bad  etymology.  But 
in  children's  language  the  theory  of  root-sounds  fairly 
breaks  down.  Few  would  venture  to  assert,  for  instance, 
that  pcqm  and  jKip  have  a  common  derivation  or  a  common 
root.  All  that  we  can  safely  say  of  connexion  between 
them  is  that  they  are  words  related  by  common  acceptance 
in  the  nursery  language.  As  such,  they  are  well  marked  in 
ancient  Home  as  in  modem  England:  papas  'nutricius, 
nutritor,'  2)ap2^U8  '  senex  ; ' '  cum  cibum  et  potum  huas  ac 
papas  dicunt,  et  matrem  niammam,  patrem  tatatn  (or 
2)apa7)i).'  ^ 

From  children'H  lunguagi ,  moreover,  we  have  striking 
proof  of  the  power  of  consensus  of  society,  in  establishing 
words  in  settled  use  without  their  carrying  traces  of  inherent 
*  Facciolati,  '  Lexicon  ; '  Varro,  ap.  Nonn.,  ii.  97. 


iudiscrimi- 
1  they  had 
to  oxprcHH 
or  grand- 
ed  to  Huch 
to  deriva- 
hI  at  from 
a  valuable 
a  kind  of 
aowing  the 
arch,  only 
1  ordinary 
1  sense  lies 
rigid  set  of 
f  tones  and 
mty  set  of 
ctly.  The 
IS  in  great 
sounds  for 
two  words 
somewhat 
is  even  in 
ogy.  But 
nds  fairly 

instance, 
a  common 
n  between 
icceptancj 
marked  in 

nutricius, 
n  buas  ac 
tatmn  (or 

B  striking 
tabliwhing 
>f  inherent 


EMOTIONAL   AND    IMITATIVK    LANOUAOK. 


U20 


expressiveness.  It  is  true  that  children  are  intimately  ac- 
quainted with  the  use  of  emotional  and  imitative  sound,  and 
their  vocal  intercourse  largely  consists  of  such  expression. 
The  effects  of  this  are  in  some  degi'eo  discernible  in  the 
class  of  words  wo  are  considering.  But  it  is  obvious  that 
the  leading  principle  of  their  formation  is  not  to  adopt 
words  distinguished  by  the  expressive  character  of  their 
sound,  but  to  choose  somehow  a  fixed  word  to  answer  a 
given  purpose.  To  do  this,  different  languages  have  chosen 
similar  articulations  to  express  the  most  diverse  and  oppo- 
site ideas.  Now  in  the  language  of  grown-up  people,  it  is 
clear  that  social  consensus  has  worked  in  the  same  way. 
Even  if  the  extreme  supposition  be  granted,  that  the  ultimate 
origin  of  every  word  of  language  lies  in  inherently  expressive 
sound,  this  only  partly  affects  the  case,  for  it  would  have  to 
be  admitted  that,  in  actual  languages,  most  words  have  so  far 
departed  in  sound  or  sense  from  this  originally  expres- 
sive stage,  that  to  all  intents  and  pui-poses  they  might  at 
first  have  been  arbitrarily  chosen.  The  main  principle  of 
language  has  been,  not  to  preserve  traces  of  original  sound- 
signification  for  the  benefit  of  future  etymologists,  but  to  fix 
elements  of  language  to  serve  as  counters  for  practical 
reckoning  of  ideas.  In  this  procrss  much  original  expres- 
siveness has  no  doubt  '^  ppeared  beyond  all  hope  of 
recovery. 

Such  are  some  of  the  ways  in  which  vocal  sounds  seem  to 
have  commended  themselves  to  the  mind  of  the  word-maker 
as  fit  to  express  his  meaning,  and  to  have  been  used  accor- 
dingly. I  do  not  think  that  the  evidence  here  adduced 
justifies  the  setting-up  of  what  is  called  the  Interjcctional 
and  Imitative  Theory  as  a  complete  solution  of  the  problem 
of  original  language.  Valid  as  this  theory  proves  itself 
within  limits,  it  would  be  incautious  to  accept  a  hypothepis 
which  can  perhaps  satisfactorily  account  for  a  twentieth  of 
the  crude  forms  in  any  language,  as  a  certain  and  absolute 
explanation  of  the  nineteen-twentieths  whose  origin  remains 
doubtful.     A  key  must  unlock  more  doors  than  this,  to  be 


a. 


""J 


.  J 
( 


K'i 


I« 


230 


EMOTIONAL   AND  IMITATIVE  LANGUAQE. 


I- 

It  ,t    . 


If 


a:.iv 


taken  as  the  master-key.  Moreover,  some  special  points 
which  have  come  under  consideration  in  these  chapters  tend 
to  show  the  positive  necessity  of  such  caution  in  theorizing. 
Too  narrow  a  theory  of  the  application  of  sound  to  sense 
may  fail  to  include  the  vaiied  devices  which  the  languages 
of  different  regions  turn  to  account.  It  is  thus  with  the 
distinction  in  meaning  of  a  word  by  its  musical  accent,  and 
the  distinction  of  distance  by  graduated  vowels.  These  are 
ingenious  and  intelligible  contrivances,  but  they  hardly 
seem  directly  emotional  or  imitative  in  origin.  A  safer  way 
of  putting  the  theory  of  a  natural  origin  of  language  is 
to  postulate  the  original  utterance  of  ideas  in  what  may 
be  called  self-expressive  sounds,  without  defining  closely 
whether  their  expression  lay  in  emotional  tone,  imitative 
noise,  contrast  of  accent  or  vowel  or  consonant,  or  other 
phonetic  quality.  Even  here,  exception  of  unknown  and 
perhaps  enormous  extent  must  be  made  for  sounds  chosen 
by  individuals  to  express  some  notion,  from  motives  which 
even  their  own  minds  failed  to  discern,  but  which  sounds 
nevertheless  made  good  their  footing  in  the  language  of  the 
family,  the  tribe,  and  the  nation.  There  may  be  many 
modes  even  of  recognizable  phonetic  expression,  unknown 
to  us  as  yet.  So  fai",  however,  as  I  have  been  able  to  trace 
them  here,  such  modes  have  in  common  a  claim  to  belong 
not  exclusively  to  the  scheme  of  this  or  that  particular 
dialect,  but  to  wide-ranging  principles  of  formation  of  lan- 
guage. Their  examples  are  to  be  drawn  with  equal  coge&cy  ' 
from  Sanskrit  or  Hebrew,  from  the  nursery-language  of 
Lombardy,  or  the  half-Indian,  half-European  jargon  of 
Vancouver's  Island ;  and  \frherever  they  are  found,  they 
help  to  furnish  groups  of  sound-words — words  which  have 
not  lost  the  traces  of  their  first  expressive  origin,  but  still 
carry  their  direct  significance  plainly  stamped  upon  them. 
In  fact,  the  time  has  now  come  for  a  substantial  basis  to  be 
laid  for  Generative  Philology.  A  classified  collection  of 
words  with  any  strong  claim  to  be  self-expressive  should  be 
brought  together  out  of  the  thousand  or  so  of  recognized 


:  m 


EMOTIONAL  AND  IMITATIVE  LANGUAGE. 


231 


icial  points 

apters  tend 

1  theorizing. 

ad  to  sense 

3  languages 

us  with  the 

accent,  and 

These  are 

bey  hardly 

A.  safer  way 

anguage  is 

what  may 

ing  closely 

J,  imitative 

it,  or  other 

^own  and 

inds  chosen 

tives  which 

ich  sounds 

uage  of  the 

be  many 

unknown 

e  to  trace 

to  belong 

particular 

ion  of  lan- 

al  cogeiicy ' 

mguage  of 

jargon  of 

und,  they 

hich  have 

but  still 

3on  them. 

)asis  to  be 

lection  of 

should  be 

ecognized 


languages  and  dialects  of  the  world.  In  such  a  Dictionary 
of  Sound-Words,  half  the  cases  cited  might  very  likely  be 
worthless,  but  the  collection  would  afford  the  practical 
means  of  expurgating  itself;  for  it  would  show  on  a  lai'ge 
scale  what  particular  sounds  have  manifested  their  fitness  to 
convey  particular  ideas,  by  having  been  repeatedly  chosen 
among  different  races  to  convey  them. 

Attempts  to  explain  as  far  as  may  be  the  primary  forma- 
tion of  speech,  by  tracing  out  in  detail  such  processes  as 
have  been  here  described,  are  likely  to  increase  our  know- 
ledge by  sure  and  steady  steps  wherever  imagination  does 
not  get  the  better  of  sober  comparison  of  facts.  But  there 
is  one  side  of  this  problem  of  the  Origin  of  Language  on 
which  such  studies  have  by  no  means  an  encouraging  effect. 
Much  of  the  popular  interest  in  such  matters  is  centred  in 
the  question,  whether  the  known  languages  of  the  world 
have  their  source  in  one  or  many  primaeval  tongues.  On 
this  subject  the  opinions  of  the  philologists  who  have  com- 
pared the  greatest  number  of  languages  are  utterly  at 
variance,  nor  has  any  one  brought  forward  a  body  of  philo- 
logical evidence  strong  and  direct  enough  to  make  anything 
beyond  mere  vague  opinion  justifiable.  Now  such  pro- 
cesses as  the  growth  of  imitative  or  symbolic  words  form  a 
part,  be  it  small  or  large,  of  the  Origin  of  Language,  but 
they  are  by  no  means  restricted  to  any  particular  place  or 
period,  and  are  ind-^ed  more  or  less  in  activity  now.  Their 
operation  on  any  two  dialects  of  one  language  will  be  to 
introduce  in  each  a  number  of  new  and  independent  words, 
and  words  even  suspected  of  having  ueen  formed  in  this 
direct  way  become  valueless  as  proof  of  genealogical  con- 
nexion between  the  languages  in  which  they  are  found. 
The  test  of  such  genealogical  connexion  must,  in  fact,  be 
generally  narrowed  to  such  words  or  grammatical  forms 
as  have  become  so  far  conventional  in  sound  and  sense, 
that  we  cannot  suppose  two  tribes  to  have  arrived  at 
them  independently,  and  therefore  consider  that  both  must 
have  inherited  them  from  a  common  source.     Thus   the 


■t-.« 


f.v 


mm 


i^^i 


232 


EMOTIONAL  AND  IMITATIVE  LANOUAQE. 


introduction  of  new  sound-words  tends  to  make  it  practi- 
cally of  less  and  less  consequence  to  a  language  what  its 
original  stock  of  words  at  starting  may  have  been ;  and 
the  philologist's  extension  of  his  knowledge  of  such  direct 
formations  must  compel  him  to  strip  off  more  and  more 
of  any  language,  as  being  possibly  of  later  growth,  before 
he  can  set  himself  to  argue  upon  such  a  residuum  as  may 
have  come  by  direct  inheritance  from  times  of  primaeval 
speech. 

In  concluding  this  survey,  some  general  considerations 
suggest  themselves  as  to  the  nature  and  first  beginnings  of 
language.  In  studying  the  means  of  expression  among 
men  in  stages  of  mental  culture  far  below  our  own,  one  of 
our  first  needs  is  to  clear  our  minds  of  the  kind  of  supersti- 
tious veneration  with  which  articulate  speech  has  so  com- 
monly been  treated,  as  though  it  were  not  merely  the 
principal  but  the  sole  means  of  uttering  thought.  We  must 
cease  to  measure  the  historical  importance  of  emotional 
exclamations,  of  gesture-signs,  and  of  picture-writing,  by 
their  comparative  insignificance  in  modern  civilized  life,  but 
must  bring  ourselves  to  associate  the  articulate  words  of  the 
dictionary  in  one  group  with  cries  and  gestures  and  pictures, 
as  being  all  of  them  means  of  manifesting  outwardly  the 
inward  workings  of  the  mind.  Such  an  admission,  it  must 
be  observed,  is  far  from  being  a  mere  detail  of  scientific 
classification.  It  has  reaUy  a  most  important  bearing  on 
the  problem  of  the  Origin  of  Language.  For  as  the 
reasons  are  mostly  dark  to  us,  why  particular  words  are 
currently  used  to  express  particular  ideas,  language  has 
come  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  mystery,  and  either  occult 
philosophical  causes  have  been  called  in  to  explain  its 
phenomena,  or  else  the  endowment  of  man  with  the  facul- 
ties of  thought  and  utterance  has  been  deemed  insufficient, 
and  a  special  revelation  has  been  demanded  to  put  into  his 
mouth  the  vocabulary  of  a  particular  language.  In  the 
debate  which  has  been  carried  on  for  ages  over  this  much- 
vexed  problem,  the  saying  in  the  '  Kratylos '  comes  back  to 


EMOTIONAL  AND  IMITATIVE   LANGUAGE. 


233 


it  practi- 
a  what  its 
een ;  and 
uch  direct 
and  more 
irth,  before 
im  as  may 

primaeval 

liderations 

[innings  of 

on  among 

wrn,  one  of 

f  supersti- 

LS  so  com- 

aerely  the 

We  must 

emotional 

^riting,  by 

id  life,  but 

3rds  of  the 

pictures, 

srardly  the 

it  must 

scientific 

•earing  on 

)r  as  the 

w^ords  are 

bge  has 

ler  occult 

plain  its 

the  facul- 

sufficient, 

t  into  his 

In  the 

is  much- 

s  back  to 


our  minds  again  and  again,  where  Sokrates  describes  the 
etymologists  who  release  themselves  from  their  difficulties 
as  to  the  '^rigin  of  words  by  saying  that  the  first  words  were 
divinely  made,  and  therefore  right,  just  as  the  tragedians, 
when  they  are  in  perplexity,  fly  to  their  machinery  and 
bring  in  the  gods.^  Now  I  think  that  those  who  soberly 
contemplate  the  operation  of  cries,  groans,  laughs,  and 
other  emotional  utterances,  as  to  which  some  considerations 
have  been  here  brought  forward,  will  admit  that,  at  least, 
our  present  crude  understanding  of  this  kind  of  expression 
would  lead  us  to  class  it  among  the  natural  actions  of  man's 
body  and  mind.  Certainly,  no  one  who  understands  any- 
thing of  the  gesture-language  or  of  pictiire-writing  would 
be  justified  in  regarding  either  as  due  to  occult  causes,  or 
to  any  supernatural  interference  with  the  course  of  man's 
intellectual  development.  Their  cause  evidently  lies  in 
natural  oy  .iions  of  the  human  mind,  not  such  as  were 
effective  '  n  )= .  e  long  past  condition  of  humanity  and  have 
since  disappeared,  but  in  processes  existing  amongst  us, 
which  we  can  understand  and  even  practise  for  ourselves. 
When  we  study  the  pictures  and  gestures  with  which 
savages  and  the  deaf  and-dumb  express  their  minds,  we  can 
mostly  see  at  a  glance  the  direct  relation  between  the  out- 
ward sign  and  the  inward  thought  which  it  makes  manifest. 
We  may  see  tte  idea  of  'sleep'  shown  in  gesture  by  the 
head  with  shut  eyes,  leant  heavily  against  the  open  hand ; 
or  the  idea  of  'running'  by  the  attitude  of  the  runner, 
with  chest  forward,  mouth  half  open,  elbows  and  shoulders 
well  back  ;  or  '  candle  '  by  the  straight  forefinger  held  up, 
and  as  it  were  blown  out ;  or  '  salt '  by  the  imitated  act 
of  sprinkling  it  with  thumb  and  fingei-  The  figures  of  the 
child's  picture-book,  the  sleeper  and  the  runner,  the  candle 
and  the  salt-cellar,  show  their  purport  by  the  same  sort  of 
evident  relation  between  thought  and  sign.  We  so  far 
understand  the  nature  of  these  modes  of  utterance,  that  we 
are  ready  ourselves  to  express  thought  after  thought  by  such 

>  Plato,  <Crat.ylus'90. 


■I 


^ 


ii 

!*:  I: 

I) 


^. 


it 


284 


EMOTIONAL  AND  IMITATIVE  LANGUAGE. 


means,  so  that  those  who  see  our  signs  shall  perceive  our 


'ii-' 


,ir^-  iv:"**' 


c 

Ml 


I 


» 

f 

I 

Ik. 


meaning. 


When,  however,  encouraged  by  our  ready  success  in 
making  out  the  nature  ind  action  of  these  ruder  methods, 
we  tu'  p.  to  the  higher  t  t  of  speech,  and  ask  how  such  and 
such  >7ords  have  come  to  express  such  and  such  thoughts, 
we  find  ourselves  face  to  face  with  an  immense  problem,  aa 
yet  but  in  small  part  solved.  The  success  of  investigation 
has  indet,^  been  enough  to  encourage  us  to  push  vigorously 
forward  in  the  research,  but  the  present  explorations  have 
not  extended  beyond  corners  and  patches  of  an  elsewhere 
unknown  field.  Still  the  results  go  far  to  warrant  us  in 
associating  expression  by  gestures  and  pictures  with  articu- 
late language  as  to  principles  of  original  formation,  much  as 
men  associate  them  in  actual  life  by  using  gesture  and  word 
at  once.  Of  course,  articulate  speech,  in  its  far  more 
complex  and  elaborate  development,  has  taken  up  devices 
to  which  the  more  simple  and  rude  means  of  communication 
ofier  nothing  comparable.  Still,  language,  so  far  as  its 
constitution  is  understood,  seems  to  have  been  developed 
like  writing  or  music,  like  hunting  or  fire-making,  by  the 
exercise  of  purely  human  faculties  in  purely  human  ways. 
This  state  of  things  by  no  means  belongs  exclusively  to 
rudimentary  philological  operations,  such  as  the  choosing 
expressive  sounds  to  name  corresponding  ideas  by.  In  the 
higher  departments  of  speech,  where  words  already  existing 
are  turned  to  account  to  exDress  new  meanings  and  shade 
off  new  distinctions,  we  find  these  ends  attained  by  con- 
trivances ranging  from  extreme  dexterity  down  to  utter 
clumsiness.  For  a  single  instance,  one  great  means  of 
giving  new  meaning  to  old  sound  is  metaphor,  which 
transfers  ideas  from  hearing  tc  seeing,  from  touching  to 
thinking,  from  the  concrete  of  one  kind  to  the  abstract  of 
another,  and  can  thus  make  almost  anything  in  the  world 
help  to  describe  or  suggest  anything  else.  What  the 
German  philosopher  described  as  the  relation  of  a  cow  to  a 
comet,  that  both   have  tails,  is   enough  and  more   than 


rceive  our 

luccess  in 
•  methods, 
r  such  and 
thoughts, 
roblem,  as 
estigation 
^rigorously 
tions  have 
elsewhere 
rant  us  in 
ith  articu- 
n,  much  as 
s  and  word 
far  more 
ip  devices 
Qunication 
far  as  its 
developed 
ig,  by  the 
nan  ways, 
isively  to 
!  choosing 
In  the 
y  existing 
and  shade 
by  con- 
to  utter 
means  of 
)r,   which 
aching  to 
jstract  of 
the  world 
Vhat  the 
cow  to  a 
ore   than 


EMOTIONAL  AND  IMITATIVE   LANGUAGE. 


236 


onough  f.;ir  the  language-maker.  It  struck  the  Australians, 
when  they  saw  a  European  book,  that  it  opened  and  shut 
like  a  mussel-shell,  and  they  began  accordingly  to  call 
books  '  mussels '  (muyum).  The  sight  of  a  steam  engine 
may  suggest  a  whole  group  of  such  transitions  in  our  own 
language  ;  the  steam  passes  along  '  fifes  '  or  '  trumpets,' 
that  is,  pipes  or  tubes,  and  enters  by  'folding-doors'  or 
valves,  to  push  a  '  pestle '  or  piston  up  and  down  in  a 
'  roller '  or  cylinder,  while  the  light  pours  from  the  furnace 
in  '  staves '  or  •  poles,'  that  is,  in  rays  or  beams.  The 
dictionaries  are  full  of  cases  compared  with  which  such  as 
these  are  plain  and  straightforward.  Indeed,  the  processes 
by  which  words  have  really  come  into  existence  may  often 
enough  remind  us  of  the  game  of  '  What  is  my  thought 
like  ? '  When  one  knows  the  answer,  it  is  easy  enough  to 
see  what  junhettlng  and  cathedral  canons  have  to  do  with 
reeds  ;  Latin  juncws  '  a  reed,'  Low  Latin  juncata,  '  cheese 
made  in  a  reed-basket,'  Italian  giuncata,  '  cream  cheese  in 
a  rush  frail,'  French  joncade  and  English  junket,  whiyh 
are  preparations  of  cream;  and  lastly  junhettlng  parties 
where  such  delicacies  are  eaten  ;  Greek  ndwr}, ' reed,  cane' 
KavS)v,  '  measure,  rule,'  thence  canonicus,  '  a  clerk  under 
the  ecclesiastical  rule  or  canon.'  Bui  who  could  guess  the 
history  of  these  words,  who  did  not  happen  to  know  these 
intermediate  links  ? 

Yet  there  is  about  this  process  of  derivation  a  thoroughly 
human  artificial  character.  When  we  know  the  whole  facts 
of  any  case,  we  can  generally  understand  it  at  once,  and  see 
that  we  might  have  done  the  same  ourselves  had  it  come  in 
our  way.  And  the  same  thing  is  true  of  the  processes  of 
making  sound-words  detailed  in  these  chapters.  Such  a 
view  is,  howpver,  in  no  way  inconsistent  with  the  attempt 
to  generalize  upon  these  processes,  and  to  state  them  as 
phases  of  the  development  of  language  among  mankind.  If 
certain  men  under  certain  circumstances  produce  certain 
results,  then  we  may  at  least  expect  that  other  men  much 
resembling  these  and  placed  under  roughly  similar  circum- 


r/ 


'1 


,,.( 
1 

W:^' 


-r,:  I 


'^36 


EMOTTONAl.   AND   IMITATIVE   LANGUAGE. 


c 

tta 
t 

f 
I 

I 


I 

It 


stanccB  will  produce  more  or  less  like  results  ;  and  this  has 
been  shown  over  and  over  again  in  these  pages  to  be  what 
really  happens.  Now  Wilhelm  von  Humboldt's  vvew  that 
language  is  an  '  organism '  has  been  considered  a  great 
step  in  philological  speculation ;  and  so  far  as  it  has  led 
students  to  turn  their  minds  to  the  search  after  general 
laws,  no  doubt  it  has  been  so.  But  it  has  also  caused  an 
increase  of  vague  thinking  and  talking,  and  thereby  no 
small  darkening  of  counsel.  Had  it  been  meant  to  say  that 
human  thought,  language,  and  action  generally,  are  organic 
in  their  nature,  and  work  under  fixed  laws,  this  would  be  a 
very  different  matter;  but  this  is  distinctly  not  what  is 
meant,  and  the  very  object  of  calling  language  an  organism 
is  to  keep  it  apart  from  mere  human  arts  and  contrivances. 
It  was  a  hateful  thing  to  Humboldt's  mind  to  '  bring  down 
.speech  to  a  mere  operation  of  the  understanding.'  '  Man,' 
he  says,  '  does  not  so  much  form  I'  inguage,  as  discern  with 
a  kind  of  joyous  wonder  its  developments,  coming  forth  as 
of  themselves.'  Yet,  if  the  practical  shifts  by  which  words 
are  shaped  or  applied  to  fit  new  meanings  are  not  devised  by 
an  operation  of  the  understanding,  we  ought  consistently  to 
carry  the  stratagems  of  the  soldier  in  the  field,  or  the  con- 
trivances of  the  workman  at  his  bench,  back  into  the  dark 
regions  of  instinct  and  involuntary  action .  That  the  actions 
of  individual  men  combine  to  produce  results  which  may  be 
set  down  in  those  general  statements  of  fact  which  we  call 
laws,  may  be  stated  once  again  as  one  of  the  main  proposi- 
tions of  the  Science  of  Culture.  But  the  nature  of  a  fact  is 
not  altered  bj'^  its  being  classed  in  common  with  others  of 
the  same  kind,  and  a  man  is  not  less  the  intelligent  inventor 
of  a  new  word  or  a  new  metaphor,  because  twenty  other 
intelligent  inventors  elsewhere  may  have  fallen  on  a  similar 
expedient. 

The  theory  that  the  original  forms  of  language  are  to  be 
referred  to  a  low  or  savage  condition  of  culture  among  the 
remotely  ancient  human  race,  stands  in  general  consistency 
with  the  known  facts  of  philology.    The  causes  which  have 


%    rt. 


EMOTIONAL    AND   IMITATIVE    LANGUAGE. 


287 


1  this  has 

)  be  what 

v^;'.ew  that 

1  a  great 

t  has  led 

r  general 

laused  an 

lereby  no 

)  say  that 

e  organic 

ould  be  a 

;  what  is 

organism 

trivances. 

ing  down 

'     '  Man,' 

cern  with 

r  forth  as 

Lch  words 

evised  by 

stently  to 

the  con- 

the  dark 

le  actions 

ih  may  be 

h  we  call 

proposi- 

a  fact  is 

others  of 

inventor 

ity  other 

a  similar 

are  to  be 
noDg  the 
isistency 
lich  have 


produced  language,  so  far  as  they  are  understood,  are 
notable  for  that  childlike  simplicity  of  operation  which 
befits  the  infancy  of  human  civilization.  The  ways  in 
which  sounds  are  in  the  first  instance  ch  ^en  and  arranged 
to  express  ideas,  are  practical  expedients  at  the  level  of 
nursery  philosophy.  A  child  of  five  years  old  could  catch 
the  meaning  of  imitative  sounds,  interjectional  words, 
symbolism  of  sex  or  distance  by  contrast  of  vowels.  Just 
as  no  one  is  likely  to  enter  into  the  real  nature  of  mytho- 
logy who  has  not  the  keenest  appreciation  of  nursery 
tales,  so  the  spirit  in  which  we  guess  riddles  and  play  at 
children's  games  is  needed  to  appreciate  the  lower  phases  of 
language.  Such  a  state  of  things  agrees  with  the  opinion 
that  such  rudimentary  speech  had  its  origin  among  men 
while  in  a  childlike  intellectual  condition,  and  thus  the  self- 
expressive  branch  of  savage  language  affords  valuable 
materials  for  the  problem  of  primitive  speech.  If  we  look 
back  in  imagination  to  an  early  period  of  human  inter- 
course, where  gesture  and  self-expressive  utterance  may 
have  had  a  far  greater  comparative  importance  than  among 
ourselves,  such  a  conception  introduces  no  new  element 
into  the  problem,  for  a  state  of  things  more  or  less  answer- 
ing to  this  is  described  among  certain  low  savage  tribes.  If 
we  turn  from  such  self- expressive  utterance,  to  that  part  of 
articulate  language  which  carries  its  sense  only  by  tradi- 
tional and  seemingly  ai'bitraiy  custom,  we  shall  find  no 
contradiction  to  the  hypothesis.  Sound  carrying  direct 
meaning  may  be  taken  up  as  an  element  of  language, 
keeping  its  first  significance  recognizable  to  nations  yet 
unborn.  But  it  may  far  more  probably  become  by  wpai*  of 
sound  and  shift  of  sense  an  expression!  jbs  symbol,  such  as 
might  have  been  chosen  in  pure  arbiirariness — a  philo- 
logical process  to  which  the  voiabularies  oi  savage  dialects 
bear  fuU  witness.  In  the  course  of  the  development  of 
language,  such  traditional  words  with  merely  i  n  inherited 
meaning  have  in  no  small  measure  driven  into  the  back- 
ground the    self-expressive   words,  just  as    the    Eastern 


m 


I 

11" 


m 


238 


EMOTIONAL   AND  IMITATIVE  LANGUAQE. 


u 


IS 


I;,"  "aiM'^. 


f 


figures  2,  3,  4,  which  are  not  self-expressive,  have  driven 
into  the  background  the  Roman  numerals  II,  III,  IIII, 
which  are — this,  again,  is  an  operation  which  has  its  place 
in  savage  as  in  cultivated  speech.  Moreover,  to  look 
closely  at  language  as  a  practical  means  of  expressing 
thought,  is  to  face  evidence  of  no  slight  bearing  on  the 
history  of  civilization.  We  come  back  to  the  fact,  so  fuU 
of  suggestion,  that  the  languages  of  the  world  represent 
substantially  the  same  intellectual  art,  the  higher  nations 
indeed  gaining  more  exjiressive  power  than  the  lowest 
tribes,  yet  doing  this  not  by  introducing  new  and  more 
effective  central  principles,  but  by  mere  addition  and 
improvement  in  detail.  The  two  great  methods  of  naming 
thoughts  and  stating  their  relation  to  one  another,  viz., 
metaphor  and  syntax,  belong  to  the  infancy  of  human  ex- 
pression, and  are  as  thoroughly  at  home  in  the  language  of 
savages  as  of  philosophers.  If  it  be  argued  that  this 
similarity  in  principles  of  language  is  due  to  savage  tribes 
having  descended  from  higher  culture,  carrying  down  with 
them  in  their  speech  the  relics  of  their  former  excellence, 
the  answer  is  that  linguistic  expedients  are  actually  worked 
out  with  as  much  originality,  and  more  extensively  if  not 
more  profitably,  among  savages  than  among  cultured  men. 
Take  for  example  the  Algonquin  system  of  compounding 
words,  and  the  vast  Estijimaux  scheme  of  grammatical 
inflexion.  Language  belongs  in  essential  ^^^'iciple  both  to 
low  grades  and  high  of  civilization,  to  which  should  its 
origin  be  attributed  ?  An  answer  may  be  had  by  comparing 
the  methods  of  language  with  the  work  it  has  to  do.  Take 
language  all  in  all  over  the  world,  it  is  obvious  that  the 
processes  by  which  words  are  made  and  adapted  have  far 
less  to  do  with  systematic  arrangement  and  scientific  classi- 
fication, than  with  mere  rough  and  ready  ingenuity  and  the 
great  lule  of  thumb.  Let  any  one  whose  vocation  it  is  to 
realize  philosophical  or  scientific  conceptions  and  to  express 
them  in  words,  ask  himself  whether  ordinary  language  is  an 
instrument  planned  for  such  purposes.     Of  course  it  is  not. 


ire  driven 

III,  nil, 

i  its  place 
to   look 
xpressing 
ig  on  the 
ct,  so  full 
represent 
)r  nations 
he  lowest 
and  more 
ition  and 
)f  naming 
ither,  viz., 
mman  ex- 
,nguage  of 
that  this 
rage  tribes 
lown  with 
excellence, 
T  worked 
tly  if  not 
ured  men. 
ipounding 
immatical 
e  both  to 
should  its 
lomparing 
lO.     Take 
that  the 
have  far 
fie  classi- 
y  and  the 
n  it  is  to 
10  express 
I  age  is  an 
it  is  not. 


EMOTIONAL  AND  IMITATIVE  LANQUAOE. 


239 


It  is  hard  to  say  which  is  the  more  striking,  the  want  of 
scientific  system  in  the  expression  of  thought  by  words,  or 
the  infinite  cleverness  of  detail  by  which  this  imperfection 
is  got  over,  so  that  he  who  has  an  idea  does  somehow  make 
shift  to  get  it  clearly  in  words  before  his  own  and  other 
minds.  The  language  by  which  a  nation  with  highly 
developed  art  and  knowledge  and  sentiment  must  express 
its  thoughts  on  these  subjects,  is  no  apt  machine  devised 
for  such  special  work,  but  an  old  barbaric  engine  added  to 
and  altered,  patched  and  tinkered  into  some  sort  of  capa- 
bility. Ethnography  reasonably  accounts  at  once  for  the 
immense  power  and  the  manifest  weakness  of  language  as  a 
means  of  expressing  modern  educated  thought,  by  treating 
it  as  an  original  product  of  low  culture,  gradually  adapted 
by  ages  of  evolution  and  selection,  to  answer  more  or  less 
sufficiently  the  requirements  of  modem  civilization. 


:Jn 


r.';i  1       " 


CHAPTER  VII. 


hi  4 


U      \ 


Fit 


c 

e 
F 

»■ 
t 


I 

f 


THE    ART    OF    COUNTING. 

Ideas  of  Number  derived  from  experience — State  of  Aritlmiotic  nmong  un- 
civilized races — Small  extent  of  Numeral-words  among  low  tribes — 
Counting  byflngersand  toos — Hand-numerals  show  derivation  of  Verbal 
reckoning  from  Gesture-counting  — Et^  mology  of  Numerals— Quinary, 
Decimal,  and  Vigesimal  notations  of  the  world  derived  from  counting 
on  fingers  and  toes — Adoption  of  foreign  Numeral-words — Evidence  of 
development  of  Arithmetic  from  a  low  original  level  of  Culture. 

Mr.  J.  S.  Mill,  in  his  '  System  of  Logic,'  takes  occa- 
sion to  examine  the  foundations  of  the  art  of  arithmetic. 
Against  Dr.  Whewell,  who  had  maintained  that  such  pro- 
positions as  that  two  and  three  make  five  are  '  necessary 
truths,'  containing  in  them  an  element  of  certainty  beyond 
that  which  mere  experience  can  give,  Mr.  Mill  asserts  that 
'  two  and  one  ai'e  equal  to  three '  expresses  merely  '  a 
truth  known  to  us  by  early  and  constant  experience  :  an 
inductive  truth ;  and  such  truths  are  the  foundation  of 
the  science  of  Number.  The  fundamental  truths  of  that 
science  all  rest  on  the  evidence  of  sense ;  they  are  proved 
by  showing  to  our  eyes  and  our  fingers  that  any  given 
number  of  objects,  ten  balls  for  example,  may  by  sepa- 
ration and  re-arrangement  exhibit  to  our  senses  all  the 
different  sets  of  numbers  the  sum  of  which  is  equal  to  ten. 
All  the  improved  methods  of  teaching  arithmetic  to  chil- 
dren proceed  on  a  knowledge  of  this  fact.  All  who  wish 
to  carry  the  child's  mind  along  with  them  in  learning 
arithmetic  ;  all  who  wish  to  teach  numbers,  and  not  mere 
ciphers — now  teach  it  through  the  evidence  of  the  senses, 


i^i' 


ail , 


THE   ART  OP  COUNTING. 


241 


ic  among  un- 
:  low  tribes— 
ition  of  Verbal 
lis— Quinary, 
rom  counting 
— Evidence  of 
Culture. 

akes  occa- 
arithmetic. 
such  pro- 
'  necessary 
ity  beyond 
isserts  that 
merely   '  a 
jrience  :  an 
mdation  of 
ihs  of  that 
are  proved 
any  given 
y  by  sepa- 
les  all   the 
[ual  to  ten. 
tic  to  chil- 
1  who  wish 
n  learning 
d  not  mere 
the  senses, 


in  tlu)  manner  wo  have  described.'  Mr.  Mill's  argument  is 
taken  from  the  mental  conditions  of  people  among  whom 
there  exists  a  highly  advanced  arithmetic.  The  subject 
is  also  one  to  be  advantageously  studied  from  the  eth- 
nographer's point  of  view.  The  examination  of  the 
methods  of  numeration  in  use  among  the  lower  races  not 
only  fully  bears  out  Mr.  Mill's  view,  that  our  knowledge 
of  the  relations  of  numbers  is  based  on  actual  experi- 
ment, but  it  enables  us  to  trace  the  art  of  counting  to 
its  source,  and  to  ascertain  by  what  steps  it  arose  in 
the  world  among  particular  races,  and  probably  among 
all  mankind. 

In  our  advanced  system  of  numeration,  no  limit  is  known 
either  to  largeness  or  smallness.  The  philosopher  cannot 
conceive  the  formation  of  any  quantity  so  large  or  of  any 
atom  so  small,  but  the  arithmetician  can  keep  pace  with 
him,  and  can  define  it  in  a  simple  combination  of  wi  itten 
signs.  But  as  we  go  downwards  in  the  scale  of  culture,  we 
find  that  even  where  the  current  language  has  terms  for 
hundreds  and  thousands,  there  is  less  and  less  power  of 
ii/rming  a  distinct  notion  of  large  numbers,  the  reckoner  is 
sooner  di-iven  to  his  fingers,  and  there  increases  among 
the  most  intelligent  that  numerical  indefiniteness  that  we 
notice  among  children — if  there  were  not  a  thousand  people 
in  the  street  there  were  certainly  a  hundred,  at  any  rate 
there  were  twenty.  Strength  in  arithmetic  does  not,  it  is 
true,  vary  regularly  with  the  level  of  general  culture. 
Some  savage  or  barbaric  peoples  are  exceptionally  skilled 
in  numeration.  The  Tonga  Islanders  really  have  native 
numerals  up  to  100,000.  Not  content  even  with  this,  the 
French  explorer  Labillardiere  pressed  them  farther  and 
obtained  numerals  up  to  1000  billions,  which  were  duly 
printed,  but  proved  on  later  examination  to  be  partly  non- 
sense-words and  partly  indelicate  expressions,^  so  that  the 
supposed  series  of  high  numerals  forms  at  once  a  little 
vocabulary  of  Tongan  indecency,  and  a  warning  as  to  the 

*  Mariner,  'Tonga  Islands,'  vol.  ii.  p.  890. 
VOL.  I.  It 


ii    il 


/ 


Ii:     ) 

t    1 


t.'i 


242 


THE   ART  OP  COUNTING. 


c 

e 

I 

IN. 


Ui  i;! 


Wit-  '  'i'  '  I 

m 


.,,  Iff 


t 

r 

k 


probable  results  of  taking  down  unchecked  answers  from 
question-worried  savages.  In  West  Africa,  a  lively  and 
continual  habit  of  bargaining  has  developed  a  great  power 
of  arithmetic,  and  little  children  already  do  feats  of  compu- 
tation with  theii'  heaps  of  cowi-ies.  Among  the  Yorubas  of 
Abeokuta,  to  say  'you  don't  know  nine  times  nine'  is 
actually  an  insulting  way  of  saying  'you  are  a  dunce.** 
This  is  an  extraordinary  proverb,  when  we  compare  it  with 
the  standard  which  our  corresponding  European  sayings  set 
for  the  limits  of  stupidity:  the  Qormn  says,  'ho  can 
scarce  count  five ' ;  the  Spaniard,  '  I  will  tell  you  how 
many  make  five '  (cuantos  son  cinco) ;  and  wo  have  the 
same  saw  in  England : — 

*.  .  .  aa  sure  as  I'm  alive. 
And  knows  how  many  beans  make  five.' 

A  Siamese  law-court  will  not  take  the  evidence  of  a  witness 
who  cannot  count  or  reckon  figures  up  to  ten ;  a  rule  which 
reminds  us  of  the  ancient  custom  of  Shrewsbury,  where  a 
person  was  deemed  of  age  when  he  knew  how  to  count  up  to 
twelve  pence.** 

Among  the  lowest  living  men,  the  savages  of  the  South 
American  forests  and  the  deserts  of  Australia,  5  is  actually 
found  to  be  a  number  which  the  languages  of  some  tribes  do 
not  know  by  a  special  word.  Not  only  have  travellers 
failed  to  get  from  them  names  for  numbers  above  2,  3,  or 
4,  but  the  opinion  that  these  are  the  real  limits  of  their 
numeral  series  is  strengthened  by  the  use  of  their  highest 
known  number  as  an  indefinite  term  for  a  great  many, 
Spix  and  Martius  say  of  the  low  tribes  of  Brazil,  'They 
count  commonly  by  their  finger  joints,  so  up  to  three  only. 
Any  larger  number  they  express  by  the  word  "  many."  *  ^ 


m  h 


■  Crowther,  '  Yoruba  Vocab.';  Burton,  '  W.  &  W.  from  W.  Africa,'  p.  258. 
'  O  daju  danu,  o  ko  mo  essan  messan. — You  (may  seem)  very  clever,  (but) 
you  can't  tell  9x9.' 

'  Low  in  'Journ.  Ind.  Archip.'  vol.  i.  p.  408;  'Year-Books  Edw.  I.' 
(XX.-1.)  ed.  Horwood,  p.  220. 

''  Spix  and  Martius,  '  Eeise  in  Brazilien,'  p.  387. 


11  ii!;-! 


vers  from 
.vely  and 
oat  power 
5f  compu- 
orubas  of 
i  nine'  is 
i  dunce.'* 
ire  it  with 
ayings  set 
,,   'ho  can 
you  how 
i  have  the 


THE   ART   OF  COUNTING. 


248 


* 


f  a  witness 
rule  which 
y,  where  a 
lount  up  to 

the  South 
is  actually 
le  tribes  do 
travellers 
)ve  2,  3,  or 
its  of  their 
eir  highest 
reat  many, 
azil,  'They 
three  only. 
"  many 


»>»  3 


Africa,'  p.  253. 
y  clever,  (but) 

looks  Edw.  I.' 


In  a  Puri  vocabulary  the  numerals  are  given  as  1.  oml ; 
2.  eurlri ;  3.  prlca,  '  many  * :   in  a  Botocudo  vocabulary, 

1.  mohenam J    2.  ttrwM,   'many.'     The    numeration    of 
the  Tasuianians  is,  according  to  Jorgenson,  1.  parmenj  ; 

2.  calahawa ;  more  than  2,  cardia  ;  as  Backhouse  puts  it, 
they  count  '  one,  two,  plenty ' ;  but  an  observer  who 
had  specially  good  opportunities.  Dr.  Milligan,  gives  theii* 
numerals  up  to  5.  puggana,  which  wo  shall  recur  to.'  Mr. 
Oldfield  (writing  especially  of  Western  tribes)  says,  'The 
New  Hollanders  have  no  names  for  numbers  beyond  two. 
The  Watchandie  scale  of  notation  is  co-ote-on  (one),  u-tau- 
ra  (two),  bool-tha  (many),  and  hool-tha-hat  (very  many). 
If  absolutely  required  to  express  the  numbers  three  or  four, 
they  say  it-tar-ra  coo-te-oo  to  indicate  the  former  number, 
and  u-tar-ra  u-tar-ra  to  denote  the  latter.'  That  is  to  say, 
their  names  for  one,  two,  three,  and  four,  are  equivalent  to 
'one,'  'two,'  'two-one,'  'two-two.'  Dr.  Lang's  numerals 
from  Queensland  are  just  the  same  in  principle,  though  the 
words  are  different:  1.  ganar  j  2.  Jnnia ;  3.  hurla-ganar, 
'  two-one ' ;  4.  burla-hurla,  '  two-two ' ;  korumha,  '  more 
than  four,  much,  great.'  The  Kamilaroi  dialect,  though 
with  the  same  2  as  the  last,  improves  upon  it  by  having  an 
independent  3,  and  with  the  aid  of  this  it  reckons  as  far  as 
6:1.  mal ;  2.  hularr  j  3.  gullba ;  4.  hilar v-htdarr,  'two- 
two  ' ;  5.  bulaguliba,  '  two-three ' ;  6.  guliba-gidiba  '  three- 
three.'  These  Australian  examples  are  at  least  evidence  of 
a  very  scanty  as  well  as  clumsy  numeral  system  among 
certain  tribes.^  Yet  here  again  higher  forms  will  h.^r  to 
be  noticed,  which  in  one  district  at  least  carry  the  native 
numerals  up  to  15  or  20. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed,  because  a  savage  tribe  has 
no  current  words  for  numbers  above  3  or  5  or  so,  that 
therefore  they  cannot  count  l»eyond  this.     It  appears  that 

'  'Tasmanian  Journal,'  vol.  i. ;  Backhouse,  'Narr.'  p.  104  ;  Milligan  in 
*  Papers,  &o.,  Roy.  Sec.  Tasmania,'  vol.  iii.  part  ii.     1869. 

"  Oldfield  in '  Tr.  Eth.  Soc' ;  vol.  iii.  p.  291 ;  Lang,  « Queensland,'  p.  433  ; 
Latham,  '  Comp.  Phil.'  p.  352.     Other  terms  in  Bonwick,  \,  c, 

R  2 


244 


THE   ART   OP   COUNTING. 


i 


r'  ^'^ '''' 


an.    Hi 


«5-     i 


f 
k 

k 
Ik 


they  can  and  do  count  considerably  farther,  but  it  is  by 
falling  back  on  a  lower  and  ruder  method  of  expression 
than  speech — the  gesture-language.  The  place  in  in- 
tellectual development  held  by  the  art  of  counting  on 
one's  fingers,  is  well  marked  in  the  description  which 
Massieu,  the  Abb^  Sicard's  deaf-and-dumb  pupil,  gives  of 
his  notion  of  numbers  in  his  comparatively  untaught 
childhood :  '  I  knew  the  numbers  before  my  instruction, 
my  fingers  had  taught  me  them.  I  did  not  know  the 
ciphers:  I  counted  on  my  fingers,  and  when  the  number 
passed  10  I  made  notches  on  a  bit  of  wood.'  ^  It  is  thus 
that  all  savage  tribes  have  been  taught  arithmetic  by  their 
fingers.  Mr.  Oldfield,  after  giving  the  account  just  quoted 
of  the  capability  of  the  Watchandie  language  to  reach  4 
by  numerals,  goes  on  to  describe  the  means  by  which  the 
tribe  contrive  to  deal  with  a  harder  problem  in  numeration. 
'  I  once  wished  to  ascertain  the  exact  number  of  natives 
who  had  been  slain  on  a  certain  occasion.  The  individual 
of  whom  I  made  the  enquiry,  began  to  think  over  the 
names  ....  assigning  one  of  his  fingers  to  each,  and  it 
was  not  until  after  many  failures,  and  consequent  fresh 
starts,  that  he  was  able  to  express  so  high  a  number,  which 
he  at  length  did  by  holding  up  his  hand  three  times,  thus 
giving  me  to  understand  that  fifteen  was  the  answer  to  this 
most  difficult  arithmetical  question.'  Of  the  aborigines  of 
Victoria,  Mr.  Stanbridge  says:  'They  have  no  name  for 
numerals  above  tv.  o,  but  by  repetition  they  count  to  five ; 
they  also  record  the  days  of  the  moon  by  means  of  the 
fingers,  the  bones  and  joints  of  the  arms  and  the  head.'  ^ 
The  Bororos  of  Brazil  reckon:  1.  couai;  2.  iniacouai ; 
3.  ouaij  and  then  go  on  counting  on  their  fingers,  re- 
peating this  ouai.^  Of  course  it  no  more  follows  among 
savages  than  among  ourselves  that,  because  a  man  counts 


•  Sicard,  "Th^orio  des  Signes  pour  I'lnstraction  des  Sourds-Muets,'  vol. 
ii.  p.  634. 

"  Stanbridge  in  'Tr,  Eth,  Soc'  vol.  i,  p,  304 

*  Martius,  'Gloss.  Brasil,'  p.  16. 


at  it  is  by- 
expression 
tee  in  in- 
ounting  on 
bion  which 
)il,  gives  of 
J  untaught 
instruction, 

know  the 
the  number 

It  is  thus 
stic  by  their 
just  quoted 

to  reach  4 
J  which  the 
numeration, 
r  of  natives 
e  individual 
ik  over  the 
Bach,  and  it 
iquent  fresh 
aaber,  which 
I  times,  thus 
iswer  to  this 
aborigines  of 
10  name  for 
unt  to  five ; 
Leans  of  the 

the  head.'^ 

,  maccmai; 

fingers,  re- 
lows  among 

man  counts 

rds-Muets,'  vol. 


THE  AET  OF  COUNTING. 


245 


on  his  fingers,  his  language  must  be  wanting  in  words  to 
express  the  number  he  wishes  to  reckon.  For  example  it 
was  noticed  that  when  natives  of  Kamchatka  were  set  to 
count,  they  would  reckon  all  their  fingers,  and  then  all 
their  toes,  so  getting  up  to  20,  and  then  would  ask, '  What 
are  we  to  do  next?'  Yet  it  was  found  on  examination 
that  numbers  up  to  100  existed  in  their  language.^  Travel- 
lers notice  the  use  of  finger-counting  among  tribes  who  can, 
if  they  choose,  speak  the  number,  and  who  either  silently 
count  it  upon  their  fingers,  or  very  usually  accompany  the 
word  with  the  action  ;  nor  indeed  are  either  of  these  modes 
at  all  unfamiliar  in  modern  Europe.  Let  Father  Gumilla, 
one  of  the  early  Jesuit  missionaries  in  South  America, 
describe  for  us  the  relation  of  gesture  to  speech  in  count- 
ing, and  at  the  same  time  bring  to  our  minds  very  remark- 
able examples  (to  be  paralleled  elsewhere)  of  the  action 
of  consensus,  whereby  conventional  rules  become  fixed 
among  societies  of  men,  even  in  so  simple  an  art  as  that  of 
counting  on  one's  fingers.  '  Nobody  among  ourselves,' 
he  remarks,  '  except  incidentally,  would  say  for  instance 
"  one,"  "  two,"  &c.,  and  give  the  number  on  his  fingers  as 
well,  by  touching  them  with  the  other  hand.  Exactly 
the  contrary  happens  among  Indians.  They  say,  for  in- 
stance, "  give  me  one  pair  of  scissors,"  and  forthwith  they 
raise  one  finger ;  "  give  me  two,"  and  at  once  they  raise 
two,  and  so  on.  They  would  never  say  "five"  without 
showing  a  hand,  never  "  ten  "  without  holding  out  both, 
never  "  twenty  "  without  adding  up  the  fingers,  placed 
opposite  to  the  toes.  Moreover,  the  mode  of  showing 
the  numbers  with  the  fingers  diflfers  in  each  nation. 
To  avoid  prolixity,  I  give  as  an  example  the  number 
"  three."  The  Otomacs  to  say  "  three  "  unite  the  thumb, 
forefinger,  and  middle  finger,  keeping  the  others  down. 
The  Tamanacs  show  the  little  finder,  the  ring  finger,  and 
the  middle  finger,  and  close  the  other  two.  The  Mai- 
pures,  lastly,  raise  the  fore,  middle,  and  ring  fingers, 
'  Kracheninnikow,  '  Kamtchatka,'  p.  17. 


M 


.5  ; 


II  < 


11 


f      -11; 


yi 


246 


THE   ABT  OF  COUNTING. 


keeping  the  other  two  hidden.'  ^  Throughout  the  world, 
the  general  relation  between  finger-counting  and  word- 
counting  may  be  stated  as  follows.  For  readiness  and 
for  ease  of  apprehension  of  numbers,  a  palpable  arith- 
metic, such  as  is  worked  on  finger-joints  or  fingers,^  or 
heaps  of  pebbles  or  beans,  or  the  more  artificial  contri- 
vances of  the  rosary  or  the  abacus,  has  so  great  an 
advantage  over  reckoning  in  words  as  almost  necessarily 
to  precede  it.  Thus  not  only  do  we  find  finger-counting 
among  savages  and  uneducated  men,  carrying  on  a  part  of 
their  mental  operations  where  language  is  only  partly  able 
to  follow  it,  but  it  also  retains  a  place  and  an  undoubted 
use  among  the  most  cultured  nations,  as  a  preparation  for 
and  means  of  acquiring  higher  arithmetical  methods. 

Now  there  exists  valid  evidence  to  prove  that  a  child 
learning  to  count  upon  its  fingers  does  in  a  way  reproduce 
a  process  of  the  mental  history  of  the  human  race  ;  that  in 
fact  men  counted  upon  their  fingers  before  they  found 
words  for  the  numbers  they  thus  expressed ;  that  in  this 
department  of  culture,  Word-language  not  only  followed 
Gesture-language,  but  actually  gi-ew  out  of  it.  The  evi- 
dence in  question  is  principally  that  of  language  itself, 
which  shows  that,  among  many  and  distant  tribes,  men 
wanting  to  express  5  in  words  called  it  simply  by  their 
name  for  the  hand  which  they  held  up  to  denote  it,  that  in 
like  manner  they  said  two  hands  or  half  a  man  to  denote 
10,  that  the  word  foot  carried  on  the  reckoning  up  to  15, 

'  Gumilla, '  Historia  del  Orenoco,'  vol.  iii.  ch.  xlv. ;  Pott,  'Zahlmethodo,' 
p.  16, 

-  The  Eastern  bro^'f  rs  have  used  for  ages,  and  still  use,  the  method  of 
secretly  indic.nting  i,  mbers  to  one  another  in  bargaining,  'by  snipping 
fingers  under  u  cloth.  '  Every  joynt  and  every  finger  hath  his  significa- 
tion,' as  an  old  traveller  says,  and  the  system  seems  a  more  or  less  artificial 
development  of  ordinary  finger-counting,  the  thumb  and  little  finger 
stretched  out,  and  the  other  fingei-s  closed,  standing  for  6  or  60,  the  ad- 
dition of  the  fourth  finger  making  7  or  70,  and  so  on.  It  is  said  that 
between  two  brokers  settling  a  price  by  thus  snipping  with  the  fingers, 
cleverness  in  bargaining,  offering  a  little  moi'e,  hesitating,  expressing 
an  obstinate  refusal  to  go  farther,  &c.,  comes  out  just  as  in  chafiering  in 
words. 


THE   ART   OF   COUNTING. 


247 


the  world, 
and  word- 
liness  and 
able  arith- 
fingers/  or 
3ial  contri- 
great  an 
necessarily 
ir-counting 
n  a  part  of 
partly  able 
undoubted 
•aration  for 
tiods. 

lat  a  child 

reproduce 

ce ;  that  in 

hey  found 

mt  in  this 

y  followed 

The  evi- 

age   itself, 

ribes,  men 

y  by  their 

it,  that  in 

to  denote 

up  to  15, 

ahlmethode,* 

le  method  of 
'by  snipping 
his  signified- 
less  artificial 
little  finger 
•r  60,  the  ad- 
is  said  that 
the  fingers, 
',  expressing 
chaffering  in 


and  to  20,  which  they  described  in  words  as  in  gesture  by 
the  hands  and  feet  together,  or  as  one  man,  and  that 
lastly,  by  various  expressions  referring  directly  to  the 
gestures  of  counting  on  the  fingers  and  toes,  they  gave 
names  to  these  and  intermediate  numerals.  As  a  definite 
term  is  wanted  to  describe  significant  numerals  of  this  class, 
it  may  be  convenient  to  call  them  'hand-numerals'  or 
'  digit-numerals.'  A  selection  of  typical  instances  will 
serve  to  make  it  probable  that  this  ingenious  device  was  not, 
at  any  rate  generally,  copied  from  one  tribe  by  another  or 
inherited  from  a  common  source,  but  that  its  working  out 
with  original  character  and  curiously  varying  detail  displays 
the  recurrence  of  a  similar  but  independent  process  of 
mental  development  among  various  races  of  man. 

Father  Gilij,  describing  the  arithmetic  of  the  Tamanacs 
on  the  Orinoco,  gives  their  numerals  up  to  4 :  when  they 
come  to  5,  they  express  it  by  the  word  amgnaitbrie,  which 
being  translated  means  '  a  whole  hand  ; '  6  is  expressed  by 
a  term  which  translates  the  proper  gesture  into  words, 
itacond  avignapond  tevinitpe  '  one  of  the  other  hand,'  and 
so  on  up  to  9.  Coming  to  10,  they  give  it  in  words  as 
amgna  acepondre  '  both  hands.'  To  denote  1 1  they  stretch 
out  both  the  hands,  and  adding  the  foot  they  say  2>uitta- 
poiid  tevinitpe  '  one  to  the  foot,'  and  thus  up  to  15,  which 
is  iptaitbne  '&  whole  foot.'  Next  follows  16,  'one  to  the 
other  foot,'  and  so  on  to  20,  tevln  itbto,  'one  Indian;'  21, 
itaconb  itbto  jamgndr  bond  tevinitpe '  one  to  the  hands  of  the 
other  Indian ; '  40,  acciache  itbto,  '  two  Indians  ; '  thence  on 
to  60,  80,  100,  '  three,  four,  five  Indians,'  and  beyond  if 
needful.  South  America  is  remarkably  rich  in  such  evi- 
dence of  an  early  condition  of  finger- counting  recorded  in 
spoken  language.  Among  its  many  other  languages  which 
have  recognizable  digit-numerals,  the  Cayriri,  Tupi,  Abi- 
pone,  and  Carib  rival  the  Tamanac  in  their  systematic  way 
of  working  out  '  hand,'  '  hands,'  '  foot,'  '  feet,'  &c.  Others 
show  slighter  traces  of  the  same  process,  where,  for 
instance,  the  numerals  5  or  10  are  found  to  be  connected 


ii 


m\ 


1  \ 


:';  * 


% 


l|!  i. 


Mk;; 


248 


THE   ABT  OF  COUNTING. 


with  words  for  '  hand,'  &c.,  as  when  the  Omagua  uses  pua, 
'  hand,'  for  5,  and  reduplicates  this  into  npapua  for  10.  In 
some  South  American  languages  a  man  is  reckoned  by 
fingers  and  toes  up  to  20,  while  in  contrast  to  this,  there  are 
two  languages  which  display  a  miserably  low  mental  state, 
the  man  counting  only  one  hand,  thus  stopping  short  at  5  ; 
the  Juri  ghovien  apa  '  one  man,'  stands  for  5  ;  tho  Cayriri 
ibichd  is  used  to  mean  both  '  person '  and  5.  Digit- 
r.umerals  are  not  confined  to  tribes  standing,  liko  these,  low 
or  high  within  the  limits  of  savagery.  The  Muyscas  of  Bogota 
were  among  the  more  civilized  native  races  of  America, 
ranking  with  the  Peruvians  in  their  culture,  yet  the  same 
method  of  formation  which  appears  in  the  language  of  the 
rude  Tamanacs  is  to  be  traced  in  that  of  the  Muyscas,  who, 
when  they  came  to  11,  12,  13,  counted  quihicha  ata,  hosa, 
riiica,  i.e.,  'foot  one,  two,  three. '^  To  turn  to  North 
America,  Cranz,  the  Moravian  missionary,  thus  describes 
about  a  century  ago  the  numeration  of  the  Greenlanders. 
'  Their  numerals,'  he  says,  '  go  not  far,  and  with  them  the 
proverb  holds  that  they  can  scarce  count  five,  for  they 
reckon  by  the  five  fingers  and  then  get  the  help  of  the  toes 
on  their  feet,  and  so  with  labour  bring  out  twenty.'  The 
modern  Greenland  grammar  gives  the  numerals  much  as 
Cranz  does,  but  more  fully.  The  word  for  5  is  tatdlimat, 
which  there  is  some  ground  for  supposing  to  have  once 
meant  '  hand  ; '  6  is  arfineh-aitauaek,  '  on  the  other  hand 
one,'  or  more  shortly  arjinigdlit,  '  those  which  have  on  the 
other  hand ; '  7  is  arjinek-mardluk,  '  on  the  other  hand 
two ; '  13  is  arkanek-pingasut,  '  on  the  first  foot  three  ; ' 
IS  is  arfersavek-pingasut, '  on  the  other  foot  three ; '  when 
they  reach  20,  they  can  say  inuk  ndvdlugo, '  a  man  ended,' 
or  inilp  avatai  ndvdlugit, '  the  man's  outer  members  ended;' 
ir  this  way  by  counting  several  men  they  reach  higher 


'  Gilij;  '  Saggio  di  Storia  Americana,'  vol.  ii.  p.  332  (Tamanac,  Maypure). 
Martius,  'Gloss.  Brasil.'  (Cayriri,  Tupi,  Carib, Omagua,  Juri,  Guachi,  Coretu, 
Cherontes,  Maxuruna,  Caripuna,  Cauixana,  Carajas,  Coroado,  &c.) ;  Dobriz- 
hoffer  'AbiponeH,'vol.ii.p.  168;  Humboldt,  'Monumens,' pi. xliv.(Muysca). 


uses  pua, 

or  10.     In 

jkoned  by 

J,  there  are 

jntal  state, 

jhort  at  5 ; 

bo  Cayriri 

5.     Digit- 

tliese,  low 

s  of  Bogota 

'  America, 

t  the  same 

age  of  the 

^scas,  who, 

ata,  hosa, 

to   North 

}  describes 

ienlanders. 

I  them  the 

for  they 

of  the  toes 

ttty.'     The 

much  as 

tatdliniat, 

lave  once 

her  hand 

ve  on  the 

ler  hand 

t  three  ; ' 

e ; '  when 

m  ended,' 

s  ended;' 

1  higher 

Maypure). 
clii,  Coretu, 
!.);  Dobriz- 

.(Muysca). 


THE   ART   OF  COUNTINa. 


249 


numbers,  thus  expressing,  for  example,  53  as  iniip  pinga- 
jugsdne  arJcanek-pingasut, '  on  the  third  man  on  the  first  foot 
three.'  ^  If  we  pass  from  the  rude  Greenlanders  to  the  com- 
paratively civilized  Aztecs,  we  shall  find  on  the  Northern  as 
on  the  Southern  continent  traces  of  early  finger-numeration 
surviving  among  higher  races.  The  Mexican  names  for  the 
first  four  numerals  are  as  obscure  in  etymology  as  our  own. 
But  when  we  come  to  5  we  find  this  expressed  by  tnacu'dli, 
and  as  inia  (ma-itl)  means  ' hand,'  and  cu'tloa  '  to  paint  or 
depict,'  it  is  likely  that  the  word  for  5  may  have  meant 
something  like  'hand-depicting.'  In  10,  matlactli,  the 
word  ma, '  hand,'  appears  again,  while  tladll  means  half,  and 
is  representee!  in  the  Mexican  picture-writings  by  the  figure 
of  lialf  a  man  from  the  waist  upward :  thus  it  appears  that 
the  Aztec  10  means  the  'hand-half  of  a  man,  just  as 
among  the  Towka  Indians  of  South  America  10  is  expressed 
as  '  half  a  man,'  a  whole  man  being  20.  When  the  Aztecs 
reach  20  they  call  it  cempoalli,  '  one  counting,'  with  evi- 
dently the  same  meaning  as  elsewhere,  one  whole  man, 
fingers  and  toes. 

Among  races  of  the  lower  culture  elsewhere,  similar  facts 
are  to  be  observed.  The  Tasmanian  language  again  shows 
the  man  stopping  short  at  the  reckoning  of  himself  when  he 
has  held  up  one  hand  and  counted  its  fingers ;  this  appears 
by  Milligan's  list  before  mentioned  which  ends  y/iih  puggana, 
'  man,'  standing  for  5.  Some  of  the  West  Australian  tribes 
have  done  much  better  than  this,  using  their  word  for 
*hand,'  marh-ra;  onarh-Jin-hang-ga,  'half  the  hands,'  is 
5  ;  Tnarh-Jin-bang-ga-gudJir-fiyn, '  half  the  hands  and  one,' 
is  6,  and  so  on;  marh-jin-belll-helll-giuljir-jina-bang-ga, 
'  the  hand  on  either  side  and  half  the  feet,'  is  IS.'**  As  an  ex- 
ample from  the  Melanesian  languages  t^e  Mar^  will  serve ; 
it  reckons  10  as  onie  re  me  tuhenine,  apparently  '  th    two 

*  Cranz,  'Gronland,' p.  286;  Kleinschmidt,  'Gr.  der  Gronl.  Spr. ;'  Rae 
in  'Tr.  Eth.  Soc'  vol.  iv.  p.  145. 

^  Millif  .1,  1.  c. ;  G.  F.  Moore,  '  Vocab.  W.  Australip.*  Compare  a  series 
of  quinary  niimorals  to  0,  from  Sydney,  in  Pott,  '  ZUhlmethcde,'  p.  46. 


ii3 


m.  4 


I'i    'i 


Hi 


250 


THE   ART  OF  COUNTING. 


n' 


t'  e& '  (i.e.  both  hands),  20  as  aa  re  ngome,  'one  man,*  &c.; 
thud  in  John  v.  5  '  which  had  an  infirmity  thirty  and  eight 
years,'  tl:o  numeral  38  is  expressed  by  the  phiario,  '  one 
man  and  both  sides  five  and  three.' ^  In  tlio  TVljiiyo- 
Polynesian  languages,  the  typical  word  for  5  is  Ihna  or  rlm.a 
'  hand,'  and  one  coiruexion  is  not  lost  by  th',  phoLoiiic 
variations  among  diftirent  brauchc,'^  of  tbis  family  of  lan- 
guages, as  in  Malagasy  <Umy,  Marquesan  fniia,  Tongan 
mrna,  but  while  liTiia  arivl  its  vanet-t  s  mean  5  in  almost  all 
Malayo-Polynesian  dialects,  its  meaning  of '  hand*  is  con 
fined  to  a  much  nan-ower  'listrict,  tsViOwing  tjiat  the  word 
became  more  permanent  by  passing  into  the  condition  of  -^ 
traditincia  1  numeval.  In  languages  of  the  Mnlayo-Poly  nvsian 
family  {'.  is  I'svially  fonnd  that  6,  &c.,  are  carried  on  with 
words  whoso  ttymology  is  no  longer  obvious,  but  the  forms 
ll')V't-m,  l',Ai  u-zaa  'hand-one,'  ' hand-two,' have  been  found 
<!oinj2;  dutv  tor  6  an^l  7.^  In  West  Africa,  KoUo's  account  of 
th';  Yei  language  gives  a  case  in  point.  These  negroes  are 
so  dependent  on  their  fir  gers  that  some  can  hurdly  count 
witliout,  and  their  toes  are  convenient  as  the  calculator  squats 
on  fche  ground.  The  Vei  people  and  many  other  African 
tribes,  when  counting,  first  count  the  fingers  of  theii-  left 
hand,  beginning,  be  it  remembered,  from  the  little  one,  then 
in  the  same  manner  those  of  the  right  hand,  and  afterwards 
the  toes.  The  Vei  numeral  for  20,  mo  hdnde,  means  obvi- 
oush'^  '  a  person  (mo)  is  finished  (bande),'  and  similarly 
40,  60,  80,  &c.  '  two  men,  three  men,  four  men,  &c.,  are 
finished  '  It  is  an  interesting  point  that  the  negroes  who 
used  these  phrases  had  lost  their  original  descriptive  sense 
— the  words  have  become  mere  numerals  to  th  "'xcv?  Lastly, 
for  bringing  before  our  minds  a  picture  of  tlie  man  counting 
upon  his  fingers,  and  being  struck  by  the  idea  that  if  he 
descrif^es  his  gestures  in  words,  these  words  may  become  an 


'  Gabelentz,  'Melanesicho  Spraclien,' p.  18 
•'  W.  V.  Humboldt,   'Kawi-Spr.'  vol.  ii.  p 
Res.'  vol.  vi.  p.  i)0 
^  KOllc,  'Gr.  of  \.;  Lang.'  p.  27. 


308  ;   coiTobi  .  by  '  As. 

'  Journ.  Ind.  Archip.'  vol.  iii.  p.  182,  4-. 


tnan,'  &c. ; 

ami  eight 
rar50,  *  one 
!    IVl'j.i  r,y o- 
la  or  rlvia 
;  phoviooic 
ily  of  lan- 
a,  Tongan 
.  almost  all 
nd'  is  con- 
t  the  word 
idition  of  i; 
Polyta!  .sian 
ed  on  with 
t  the  forms 
heen  found 
s  account  of 
negroes  are 
irdly  count 
iiitor  squats 
ler  African 
f  theii-  left 
lo  one,  then 

aftei-wards 

leans  ohvi- 
similarly 
In,  &c.,  are 
legroes  who 

l)tive  sense 
•'     Lastly, 

[in  counting 
that  if  he 

Ibecome  an 


by  'As. 


THE   AHT  OF  COUNTING. 


251 


actual  name  for  the  number,  perhaps  no  language  in  the 
world  surpasses  the  Zulu.  The  Zulu  counting  on  his 
fingers  begins  in  general  with  the  little  finger  of  his  left 
hand.  When  he  comes  to  5,  this  he  may  call  edeaanta 
'  finish  hand  ; '  then  he  goes  on  to  the  thumb  of  the  right 
hand,  and  so  the  word  tatiHitupa  '  taking  the  thumb ' 
becomes  a  numeral  for  6.  Then  the  verb  Icomha  '  to  point,' 
indicating  the  forefinger,  or  'pointer,'  makes  the  next 
numeral,  7.  Thus,  answering  the  question  '  How  much 
did  your  master  give  you  ? '  a  Zulu  would  say  '  U  komhile ' 
'  He   pointed   with    his    forefinger,'    i.e.,    '  He 


gave 


me 


seven,'  and  this  curious  way  of  using  the  numeral  verb  is 
shown  in  such  an  example  as  '  amahasi  akomhile '  '  the 
horses  have  pointed,'  i.e., '  there  were  seven  of  them.'  In 
like  manner,  KiJawjalohlU  'keep  back  two  fingers,'  i.e.  8, 
and  Kljangalolunje  '  keep  back  one  finger,'  /.  e.  9,  lead  on 
to  Jcttmi,  10 ;  at  the  completion  of  each  ten  the  two  hands 
with  open  fingers  are  clapped  together.^ 

The  theory  that  man's  primitive  mode  of  counting  was 
palpable  reckoning  on  his  hands,  and  the  proof  that  many 
numerals  in  present  use  are  actually  derived  from  such  a 
state  of  things,  is  a  great  step  towards  discovering  the  origin 
of  numerals  in  general.  Can  we  go  farther,  and  state 
broadly  the  mental  process  by  which  savage  men,  having  no 
numerals  as  yet  in  their  language,  came  to  invent  them  ? 
What  was  the  origin  of  numerals  not  named  with  reference 
to  hands  and  feet,  and  especially  of  the  numerals  below  five, 
to  which  such  a  derivation  is  hardly  appropriate?  The 
subject  is  a  peculiarly  difficult  one.  Yet  as  to  principle  it 
is  not  altogether  obscure,  for  some  evidence  is  forth- 
coming as  to  the  actual  formation  of  new  numeral  words, 
these  being  made  by  simply  pressing  into  the  service 
names  of  objecis  or  octions  a  some  way  appropriate  to  the 
purpose. 

i'uople  i  •>bsessiug  full  sets  uf  inherited  numerals  in  their 

'  Schroud;'!",  'Gr,  for  Zulu  Sprogot,'  p.  30  ;  DoUio,  'Zulu  Die.';  Groat, 
'ZuluGr.'     See  Halm,  '  Gr.  des  Herero." 


11 

1:!8 


I* 


252 


THE   ART  OF  COUNTING. 


m 


C! 

|H 

ft- 


f 


own  languages  have  nevertheless  sometimes  round  it  con- 
venient to  invent  new  ones.  Thus  the  scholars  of  India, 
nETfis  ago,  sf 'ected  a  set  of  words  for  a  memoria  technica  in 
order  to  recoi  d  dates  and  numbers.  These  words  they  chose 
for  reasons  which  are  still  in  great  measure  evident ;  thus 
'moon'  or  'earth'  expressed  1,  there  being  but  one  of 
each;  2  might  be  called  'eye,'  'wing,'  'arm,'  'jaw,' 
as  going  in  pairs ;  for  3  they  said  '  Rama,'  '  fire,'  or 
'quality,*  there  being  considered  to  be  three  Ramas,  three 
kinds  of  fire,  three  qualities  (guna) ;  for  4  were  used '  veda' 
'  age,'  or  '  ocean,'  there  being  four  of  each  recognized ; 
'  season  '  for  6,  because  they  reckoned  six  seasons  ;  '  sage ' 
or  '  vowel '  for  7,  from  the  seven  sages  and  the  seven 
vowels;  and  so  on  with  higher  numbers,  'sun'  for  12, 
because  of  his  twelve  annual  denominations,  or  'zodiac' 
from  its  twelve  signs,  and  '  nail '  for  20,  a  word  incidentally 
bringing  in  a  finger-notation.  As  Sanskrit  is  very  rich  in 
synonyms,  and  as  even  the  numerals  themselves  might  be 
used,  it  became  very  easy  to  draw  up  phrases  or  nonsense- 
verses  to  record  series  of  numbers  by  this  system  of  arti- 
ficial memory.  The  following  is  a  Hindu  astronomicril 
formula,  a  list  of  numbers  referring  to  the  stars  of  the  lurtp.r 
constellations.  Each  word  stands  as  the  r^nemonic  equi- 
valent of  the  number  placed  over  it  in  the  English  trans- 
lation. The  general  principle  on  >Yhich  the  wor.^a  are 
chosen  to  denote  the  numbers  is  evident  without  further 
explanation : — 

'•  Vahni  tri  rtvishu  gunendu  kritagiiibhu*,a 
Banasvinetra  9ara  bhuku  yugabdhi  ra  nah 
Rudrabdhiramagunaveda9atup  dviyugmt 
Danta  budhairabhiliitah  kraraa90  bhtiuirah.' 


3        3  6        5  3  1  4 

/.  e.,  '  Fire,  three,  season,  arrow,  quality,  moon,  four-side  of  die, 
3  5 

fire,  element, 

5  2        2         5  114         4  a 

Arrow,  Asvin,  eye,  arrow,  earth,  earth,  age,  ocean,  Rama, 


ad  it  con- 
i  of  India, 
echnica  in 
they  chose 
lent;  thus 
>ut  one  of 
rm/  'jaw,' 
'  'fire,'  or 
imas,  three 
ised' veda' 
ecognized ; 
ns  ;   'sage' 

the  seven 
in'  for  12, 
)r  'zodiac' 
ncidentally 
'^ery  rich  in 
s  might  be 
:  nonsense- 
em  of  arti- 
jtronomicril 
»f  the  lur.p.r 
ionic  equi- 
zlish  trans- 

worJs  are 
5ut  lurther 


of  die, 


Rama, 


THE   ART  O.i"  COUNTING. 


253 


11         4  3  3  4         100         2        2 

Rudra,  ocean,  Rama,  quality,  Veda,  hundred,  two,  couple, 

32 
Teeth :  by  the  wise  have  been  set  forth  in  order  the  mighty 
lordB.'* 

It  occurred  to  Wilhelm  von  Humboldt,  in  studying  this 
curious  system  of  numeration,  that  he  had  before  his  eyes 
the  evidence  of  a  process  very  like  that  which  actually  pro- 
duced the  regular  numeral  words  denoting  one,  two,  three, 
&c.,  in  the  various  languages  of  the  world.  The  following 
passage  in  which,  more  than  thirty  years  ago,  he  set  forth 
this  view,  seems  to  me  to  contain  a  nearly  perfect  key  to 
the  theory  of  numeral  words.  '  If  we  take  into  considera- 
tion the  origin  of  actual  numerals,  the  process  of  their 
formation  appears  evidently  to  have  been  the  same  as  that 
here  described.  The  latter  is  nothing  else  than  a  wider 
extension  of  the  former.  For  when  5  is  expressed,  as  in 
several  languages  of  the  Malay  family,  by  "  hand  "  [lima), 
this  is  precisely  the  same  thing  as  when  in  the  description^^  '[^^ 
of  numbers  by  words,  2  is  denoted  by  "  wing."  Indisputably  t/,  ^«. 
there  lie  at  the  root  of  all  numerals  such  metaphors  as  '^'^' 
these,  though  they  cannot  always  be  now  traced.  But 
people  seem  early  to  have  felt  that  the  multiplicity  of  such 
signs  for  the  same  number  was  superfluous,  too  clumsy,  and 
leading  to  misunderstandings.'  Therefore,  he  goes  on  to 
argue,  synonyms  of  numerals  are  very  rare.  And  to 
nations  with  a  deep  sense  of  language,  the  feeling  must 
soon  have  been  present,  though  pei'haps  without  rising  to 
distinct  consciousness,  that  recollections  of  the  original 
etymology  and  descriptive  meaning  of  numerals  had  best  be 
allowed  to  disappear,  so  as  to  leave  the  numerals  themselves 
to  become  mere  conventional  terms. 


'  Sir  W.  Jones  in  'As.  Res.'  vol.  ii.  1790,  p.  296  ;  E.  Jacquet  in  'Nouv. 
Journ.  Asiat.'  1835  ;  W.  v.  Humboldt,  '  Kawi-Spr.'  vol.  i.  p.  19.  This 
system  of  recording  dates,  &c.,  extended  as  far  as  Tibet  and  the  Indian 
Archipelago.  Many  innortant  points  of  Oriental  chronology  depend  on 
such  formulas.  '  '  nately  their  evidence  is  more  or  less  vitiated  by 
inconsistencies  in  u,u  use  of  words  for  numbers. 


i'"' 


h  U  M«v» 


*  •  \.r.' 


m 

■■|!:- 

11'     7 


254 


THE   ART   OP  COUNTTNO. 


w 


0  '• 

H 


The  most  instructive  evidence  I  have  found  bearing  on 
the  formation  of  numerals,  other  than  digit-niimerals, 
among  the  lowei*  rf>v;'\  ,  apf  .^ars  in  the  use  on  both  sides  of 
the  globe  of  Avhut  raav  li*  ailed  numeral-names  for  children. 
In  Australia  a  well-marked  case  occurs.  With  all  the 
poverty  of  the  aboriginal  languages  in  numerals,  3  being 
commonly  used  as  meaning  '  several  or  many,'  the  natives 
in  the  Adelaide  district  have  for  a  particular  purpose  gone 
far  be;,ond  this  narrow  limit,  i\n^  posticss  ^'hat  is  to  all 
intents  a  special  numeral  system,  extending  perhaps  to  9. 
They  give  fixed  names  to  their  children  in  order  of  age, 
which  ai'e  set  down  as  follows  by  Mr.  Eyre :  1.  Kertameru  ; 
2.  \v  arritya ;  3.  Kudnutya ;  4.  Monaitya ;  5.  Milaitya  ;  6. 
Mairutya ;  7.  Wangutya;  8.  Ngarlaitya;  9.  Pouarna. 
These  are  the  male  names,  from  which  the  female  differ  in 
termination.  They  are  given  at  birth,  more  distinctive 
appellations  being  soon  afterwards  chosen.'  A  similar 
habit  makes  its  appearance  among  the  Malays,  who  in  some 
districts  ai  e  reported  to  use  a  senes  of  seven  names  in  ore!  r 
of  age,  beginning  with  1 .  Suluny  ('  eldesi ') ;  2.  Atvaiig 
('  friend,  companion  *),  and  ending  with  KecJtil  ('  little 
one '),  or  Bongsu  ('  youngest ').  These  are  for  sons ; 
daughters  have  Meh  prefixed,  and  nicknames  have  to  be 
used  for  practical  distinction.''*  In  Madagascar,  the  Malay 
connexion  manifests  itself  in  the  appearance  of  a  similar  set 
of  appellations  given  to  childi-eii  in  lieu  of  proper  names, 
which  are,  ho\/ever,  o^ucn  su^  tituted  in  after  years. 
Males ;  Lahlmatoa  ('  first  male  ),  Lah-ivt  ('  intermediate 
male');  Ra-fara-lahy  ('last  born  male').  Females; 
Ramatoa  ('eldest  ienjale'),  Ra-'rvo  ('intermediate'),  Ra- 
/ara-vavy  ('last   born   female')."     The    system    ex'bts   in 


'  Eyre,  'Australia,*  vol.  ii.  p.  3^  Shur  iiann,  'Vocab.  of  Parnkalla 
Lang.'  gives  forms  partially  corres;.         ng. 

'^  '.Tourn.  Ind.  Archip.'  New  Scr  .  ii  858,  p.  118  [Sulong,  Awang, 
Itam  ('Mack'),  Puteh  ('white'),  Allai  g,  Pen  leh,  Kechil  or  Bongsu] ;  Bas- 
tian,  '  Oestl.  Asien,'  vol.  ii.  p.  494.  Tlie  details  are  imperfectly  given,  and 
seem  not  all  correct. 

'  Ellis,  '  Madagascar,"  vol.  i.  p.  1.54.     Also  Andrlampaivo,  or  Lahi-Zan- 


caving  on 
numerals, 
h  sides  of 
:  children, 
h   all   the 
1,  3  being 
he  natives 
'pose  gone 
b  is  to  all 
baps  to  9. 
er  of  age, 
ertameru ; 
ilaitya ;  6. 
Pouarna. 
le  differ  in 
distinctive 
A  similar 
10  in  some 
es  in  orr!  i* 
Atvcnig 
('  little 
or    sons  ; 
ave  to  be 
le  Malay 
imilar  set 
er  names, 
er    years, 
ermediate 
Females  ; 
te'),  Ra- 
ey'bts   in 


f  Parnkalla 

ng,  Awang, 

igsu] ;  Bas- 

given,  and 

Labi  Zan- 


THE   ART   OF  COV  NTINO. 


255 


North  America.  There  have  been  found  in  use  among 
the  Dacotas  the  following  two  series  of  names  for  sons 
and  daughters  in  order  of  birth.  Eldest  son,  Chaskej 
necond,  Haparm  ;  third,  Ha-pe-dah ;  iowrih,  Chatun  j  fifth, 
Harka.  Eldest  daughter,  Wenonah;  second,  Harpen ; 
third,  Harpstenah;  fourth,  Waska ;  fifth,  We-harka, 
These  mere  numeral  appellations  they  retain  through  child- 
hood, till  their  relations  or  friends  find  occasion  to  re- 
place them  by  bestowing  some  mor"  distinctive  personal 
name.^     Africa  affords  further  examples.^ 

As  to  numerals  in  the  ordinary  sense,  Polynesia  shows 
remarkable  cases  of  new  formation.  Besides  the  well- 
known  system  of  numeral  word  prevalent  in  Polynesia, 
exceptional  terms  have  from  time  to  time  grown  up.  Thus 
th*^  habit  of  altering  words  which  sounded  too  nearly  like  a 
king's  name,  has  led  the  Tahitians  on  the  accession  of  new 
chiefs  to  make  several  new  words  for  numbers.  Thus, 
wanting  a  new  term  for  3  instead  of  the  ordinary  rua,  they 
for  obvious  reasons  took  up  the  word  pitl,  '  together,'  and 
n  de  it  a  nui  •  ral,  while  to  get  a  new  word  for  5  instead  of 
re.  \  'hand,  which  had  to  be  discontinued,  they  substi- 
tuted pae,  'part,  division,'  meaning  probably  division  of 
the  J  hands.  Such  words  as  these,  introduced  in 
Polynesia  tV  ceremonial  reasons,  are  expected  to  be 
dropped  aga  md  the  old  ones  replaced,  when  the  reason 
for  their  temporary  exclusion  ceases,  yet  the  new  2  and  5, 
piti  and  pae,  became  so  positively  the  proper  numerals  of 
the  language,  that  they  stand  instead  of  rua  and  rima  in  the 
Tahitian  translation  of  the  Gospel  of  St.  John  made  at  the 
time.  Again,  various  special  habits  of  counting  in  the 
South  Sea  Islands  have  had  their  effect  on  language.  The 
Marquesans,  counting  fish  or  fruit  by  one  in  each  hand, 

drina,  for  last  male;  Andrianivo  fov  intermediate  male.  Malagasy  Muj 
'  male '  =  Malay  laki;  Malagasy  vamj,  '  temale'=Tongan/(»//ie,  Maori  icahine, 
•woman;'  comp.  Malay  6rt<ina,  'female.' 

'  M.  Eastman,  'Dahcotah  ;  or,  Life  and  Legends  of  the  Sioux,'  p.  xxv. 

*  '  Journ.  Ethnol.  Soc'  vol.  iv.  (Akra)  ;  Ploss,  'Das  Kind,'  vol.  i.  n,  im 
(Elmina). 


I 

■i 

i 


y56 


THE    ART  OF  COUNTINO. 


c 


»k. 


h 


have  come  to  use  a  Hystem  of  counting  by  pairs  instoafl  of 
by  units.  They  start  with  tauna,  *  a  pair,'  which  thus 
becomes  a  numeral  equivalent  to  2 ;  then  they  count 
onward  by  pairs,  so  that  when  they  talk  of  takau  or  10,  they 
really  mean  10  pair  or  20.  For  bread-fruit,  as  they  aro 
accustomed  to  ti(^  them  up  in  knots  of  four,  they  begin  with 
the  word  puna,  '  knot,'  which  thus  becomes  a  real  numeral 
for  4,  and  here  again  they  go  on  counting  by  knots,  so  that 
when  they  say  talcait  or  10,  they  mean  10  knots  or  40. 
The  philological  mystification  thus  caused  in  Polynesian 
vocabularies  is  extraordinary ;  in  Tahitian,  &c.,  rau  and 
7)mno,  properly  meaning  100  and  1,000,  have  come  to 
signify  200  and  2,000,  while  in  Hawaii  a  second  doubling 
in  their  sense  makes  them  equivalent  to  400  and  4,000. 
Moreover,  it  seems  possible  to  trace  the  transfer  of  suitable 
names  of  objects  still  farther  in  Polynesia  in  the  Tongan 
and  Maori  word  tekau,  10,  which  seems  to  have  been  a 
word  for  '  parcel '  or  *  bunch,'  used  in  counting  yams  and 
fish,  as  also  in  tcfahl,  100,  derived  ir om  fuhl,  'sheaf  or 
bundle.' ' 

In  Africa,  also,  special  numeral  formations  are  to  be 
noticed.  In  the  Yoruba  language,  40  is  called  ogochi, '  a 
string,'  because  cowries  are  strung  by  forties,  and  200  is 
igba,  'a  heap,'  meaning  again  a  heap  of  cowries.  Among 
the  Dahomans  in  like  manner,  40  cowries  make  a  kade  or 
'  string,'  50  strings  make  one  afo  or  *  head ; '  these  words 
becoming  numerals  for  40  and  2,000.  When  the  king  of 
Dahome  attacked  Abeokuta,  it  is  on  record  that  he  was 
repulsed  with  the  heavy  loss  of '  two  heads,  twenty  strings, 
and  twenty  cowries '  of  men,  that  is  to  say,  4,820.'^ 

Among  cultured  nations,  whose  languages  are  most 
tightly    bound    to    the    conventional    and    unintelligible 


'  H.  Hale,  'Ethnography  and  Philology,'  vol.  vi.  of  Wilkes,  U.  S.  Explor- 
ing Exp.,  Philadelphia,  1846,  pp.  172,  280.  (N.B.  The  ordinary  editions 
do  not  contain  this  important  volume.) 

"  Bo  wen,  'Gr.  and  Die.  of  Yoruba.'  Burton  in  'Mem.  Anthrop.  Soo.' 
vol.  i.  p.  814. 


inBtoad  of 
krhich   thus 
hey   count 
or  10,  they 
,8  thoy  are 
begin  with 
al  numeral 
ots,  so  that 
loty  or  40, 
Polynesian 
i.,  rem  and 
e   come  to 
d  doubling 
and  4,Ono. 
of  suitable 
nhe  Tongan 
ive  been  a 
;  yams  and 
'  sheaf  or 

are  to   be 

ogoclzi, '  a 

and  200  is 

Among 

a  kcide  or 

lese  words 

16  king  of 

lat  he  was 

ity  strings, 

2 

are   most 
lintelligible 


U.  S.  Explor- 
inary  editions 

Lnthrop.  Soc' 


THE   ART  OP  COUNTINO. 


267 


numerals  of  their  ancestors,  it  is  likewise  usual  to  find 
other  terms  existing  which  are  practically  numerals  already, 
and  might  drop  at  once  into  the  recognized  place  of  such,  if 
by  any  chance  a  gap  were  made  for  them  in  the  traditional 
series.  Had  we  room,  for  instance,  for  a  new  word  instead 
of  two,  then  either  jxtir  (Latin  par,  'equal')  or  couple 
(Latin  cupula,  'bond  or  tie,')  is  ready  to  fill  its  place. 
Instead  of  huenty,  the  good  English  word  score,  *  notch,' 
will  serve  our  turn,  while,  for  the  same  purpose,  German 
can  use  diege,  possibly  with  the  original  sense  of  *  a  stall 
full  of  cattle,  a  sty ; '  Old  Norse  drdtt,  •  a  company,' 
Danish,  nnees.  A  list  of  such  words  used,  but  not  gram- 
matically classed  as  numerals  in  European  languages,  shows 
great  variety :  examples  are.  Old  Norse,  flovkr  (flock),  5 ; 
nveit,  6;  drdtt  (party),  20;  thiodh  (people),  30;  folk 
(people),  40 ;  old  (people),  80 ;  her  (army),  100 ;  Sleswig, 
8chilk,  12  (as  though  we  were  to  make  a  numeral  out  of 
'  shilling ') ;  Mid.  High-German,  rotte,  4 ;  New  High- 
German,  mandel,  15  ;  schock  (sheaf),  60.  The  Letts  give  a 
curious  parallel  to  Polynesian  cases  just  cited.  They 
throw  crabs  and  little  fish  three  at  a  time  in  counting  them, 
and  therefore  the  word  mettens,  *a  throw,'  has  come  to 
mean  3  ;  while  flounders  being  fastened  in  lots  of  thirty, 
the  word  kahlis,  'a  cord,'  becomes  a  term  to  express  this 
number. ' 

In  two  other  ways,  the  production  of  numerals  from 
merely  descriptive  words  may  be  observed  both  among 
lower  and  higher  races.  The  Gallas  have  no  numerical 
fractional  terms,  but  they  make  an  equivalent  set  of  terms 
from  the  division  of  the  cakes  of  salt  which  they  use  as 
money.  Thus  tchahnana,  'a  broken  piece'  (from  tcJwha, 
'to  break,'  as  we  say  'a  fraction'),  receives  the  meaning 
of  one-half;  a  term  which  we  may  compare  with  Latin 
dimidium,  French  demi.  Ordinal  numbers  are  generally 
derived  from  cardinal  numbers,  as  third,  fourth,  fifth,  from 

»  See  Pott,  'Zahlmethode,'  pp.  78,  99,  124,   161;  Grimm,   'Deutsche 
Rechtsalterthiimer,*  ch.  v. 

VOL.  I.  S 


jifV' 


n 


H>; 


'W 


258 


THE  ART  OP  COUNTING. 


■•:*i : 


Mk 

S5      B5 

i:-          ttf 

n 

r 

'f^ 

Wi 

\iv 

!*    1^ 

f-' 

»i> 

^-       "^ 

'i'    c 

i;;.      r   »». 

Ifl    '            K'r 

i    .,        » 

3^-  ■         Ki. 

I          1 

i  r 

■       fc 

^             «t'>'' 

•           >?■    t 

»t. 

'■■','. 

»«« 

1) 

three,  four,  five.  But  among  the  very  low  ones  there  is  to 
be  seen  evidence  of  independent  formation  quite  uncon- 
nected with  a  conventional  system  of  numerals  already 
existing.  Thus  the  Greenlander  did  not  use  his  'one'  to 
make  'first,'  but  calls  it  auJugdleJc,  'foremost,'  nor  'two' 
to  make  '  second,'  which  he  calls  aipd,  '  his  companion ; ' 
it  is  only  at  'third'  that  he  takes  to  his  cardinals,  and 
forms  pingajuat  in  connexion  with  pingasut,  3.  So,  in 
Indo-European  languages,  the  ordinal  prathartias,  irpStTus, 
primus,  first,  has  nothing  to  do  with  a  numerical  '  one,' 
but  with  the  preposition  pi^a, '  before,'  as  meaning  simply 
'  foremost ; '  and  although  Greeks  and  Germans  call  the 
next  ordinal  bfVTepos,  zweite,  from  bvo,  zwei,  we  call  it 
second,  Latin  secundus,  'the  following'  (sequi),  which  is 
again  a  descriptive  sens*,  word. 

If  we  allow  ourselves  to  mix  for  a  moment  what  is  with 
what  might  be,  we  can  see  how  unlimited  is  the  field  of 
possible  growth  of  numerals  by  mere  adoption  of  the  names 
of  familiar  things.  Following  the  example  of  the  Sleswigers 
we  might  make  shilling  a  numeral  for  13,  and  go  on  to  ex- 
press 4  by  groat ;  iveek  would  provide  us  with  a  name  for  7, 
and  clover  for  3.  But  this  simple  method  of  description 
is  not  the  only  available  one  for  the  purpose  of  making 
numerals.  The  moment  any  series  of  names  is  arranged  in 
regular  order  in  our  minds,  it  becomes  a  counting-machine. 
I  have  read  of  a  little  girl  who  was  set  to  count  cards,  and 
she  counted  them  accordingly,  January,  February,  March, 
April.  She  might,  of  course,  have  reckoned  them  as 
Monday,  Tuesday,  Wednesday.  It  is  interesting  to  find  a 
case  coming  under  the  same  class  in  the  language  of  grown 
people.  We  know  that  the  numerical  value  of  the  Hebrew 
letters  is  given  with  reference  to  their  place  in  the  alphabet, 
which  was  arranged  for  reasons  that  can  hardly  have  had 
anything  to  do  with  arithmetic.  The  Greek  alphabet  is  modi- 
fied from  a  Semitic  one,  but  instead  of  letting  the  numeral 
valuo  of  their  letters  follow  throughout  their  newly -arranged 
alphabet,  they  reckon  a,  /3,  y,  S,  e,  properly  as  1,  3,  3,  4,  5, 


THE   ART   OF  COUNTING. 


259 


there  is  to 
lite  uncon- 
ils  already 
is  'one'  to 

nor  'two' 
)mpanion ; ' 
dinals,  and 

3.  So,  in 
lias,  TrpwTos, 
jrical  'one,' 
ling  simply 
ns  call  the 
we  call  it 
),  which  is 

rhat  is  with 
the  field  of 
>f  the  names 
e  Sleswigers 
;o  on  to  ex- 
name  for  7, 
description 
of  making 
irranged  in 
ig-machine. 
cards,  and 
lary,  March, 
Id   them  as 
to  find  a 
je  of  grown 
the  Hebrew 
le  alphabet, 
have  had 
)et  is  modi- 
le  numeral 
|y-arranged 
2,  3,  4,  5, 


then  put  in  S"  for  6,  and  so  manage  to  let  i  stand  for  10, 
as  ^  does  in  Hebrew,  where  it  is  really  the  10th  letter.  Now, 
having  this  conventional  arrangement  of  letters  made,  it  is 
evident  that  a  Greek  who  had  to  give  up  the  regular  1,  2, 3, 
— (Is,  bvo,  rpels,  could  supply  their  places  at  once  by 
adopting  the  names  of  the  letters  which  had  been  settled  to 
stand  for  them,  thus  calling  1  alpha,  2  beta,  3  gamma,  and 
so  onward.  The  thing  has  actually  happened ;  a  remarkable 
slang  dialect  of  Albania,  vhich  is  Greek  in  structure, 
though  full  of  borrowed  and  mystified  words  and  metaphors 
and  epithets  understood  only  by  the  initiated,  has,  as  its 
equivalent    for    'four'   and    'ten,'   the  words    bikra  and 


(6>ra. 


While  insisting  on  the  value  of  such  evidence  as  this  in 
making  out  the  general  principles  of  the  formation  of 
numerals,  I  have  not  found  it  profitable  to  undertake  the 
task  of  etymologizing  the  actual  numerals  of  the  languages 
of  the  world,  outside  the  safe  limits  of  the  systems  of  digit- 
numerals  among  the  lower  races,  already  discussed.  There 
may  be  in  the  languages  of  the  lower  races  other  relics  of 
the  etymology  of  numerals,  giving  the  clue  to  the  ideas 
according  to  which  they  were  selected  for  an  arithmetical 
purpose,  but  such  relics  seem  scanty  and  indistinct.'^  There 
may  even  exist  vestiges  of  a  growth  of  numerals  from  de- 
scriptive words  in  our  Indo-European  languages,  in  Hebrew 
and   Arabic,   in   Chinese.     Such  etymologies   have   been 


'  Francisque-Michel,  'Argot,' p.  483. 

■■'Of  evidence  of  this  class,  the  following  desei'ves  attention : — Dobrizhoffer, 
'Abipones,' vol.  ii.  p.  169,  gives  gexjenknate,  '  ostrich- toes,'  as  the  numeral 
for  4,  their  ostrich  having  three  toes  before  and  one  behind,  and  ncmhalek, 
*a  five-coloured  spotted  hide,'  as  the  numeral  6.  D'Orbigny,  'L'Homme 
Am(5ricain,'  vol.  ii.  p.  163,  remarks : — 'Les  Chiquitos  ne  savent  compter  que 
jusqu'a  un  {iama),  n'ayant  plus  ensuite  que  des  termes  de  comparaison.' 
Kolle,  '  Gr.  of  Vei  Lang.,'  notices  that  /era  means  both  '  v\rith '  and  2,  and 
thinks  the  former  meaning  original  (compare  the  Tah.  piti,  'together,* 
thence  2).  Quichua  chuncu,  '  heap,'  chunca,  10,  may  be  connectod.  Aztec, 
ce,  1,  cen-tli,  '  grain,'  may  be  connected.  On  possible  derivations  of  2  from 
hand,  &c.,  especially  Hottentot,  I'koam,  'hand,  2,'  see  Pott,  'Ztthlmethodo,' 
p.  29. 

S  2 


u 

i 

I 


II'-  "i 


260 


THE   ART   OP  COUNTING. 


:,:} . 

w  1, 

1 ' 

'  i^  'i 

!■    ',,  ^ 

■  ;■*! 

1^ 

>■>■  ■ 

t: 

L  ' 

f 

I: 

m 
Kt>. 


brought  foi-ward,^  and  they  are  consistent  with  what  is 
known  of  the  principles  on  which  numerals  or  quasi- 
numerals  ai'e  really  formed.  But  so  far  as  I  have  been  able 
to  examine  the  evidence,  the  cases  all  seem  so  philologically 
doubtful,  that  I  cannot  bring  them  forward  in  aid  of  the 
theory  before  us,  and,  indeed,  think  that  if  they  succeed  in 
establishing  themselves,  it  will  be  by  the  theory  supporting 
them,  rather  than  by  their  supporting  the  theory.  This 
state  of  things,  indeed,  fits  perfectly  with  the  view  here 
adopted,  that  when  a  word  has  once  been  taken  up  to 
serve  as  a  numeral,  and  is  thenceforth  wanted  as  a  mere 
symbol,  it  becomes  the  interest  of  language  to  allow  it  to 
break  down  into  an  apparent  nonsense-word,  from  which 
all  traces  of  original  etymology  have  disappeared. 

Etymological  research  into  the  derivation  of  numeral 
words  thus  hardly  goes  with  safety  beyond  showing  in  the 
languages  of  the  lower  culture  frequent  instances  of  digit 
numerals,  words  taken  from  direct  description  of  the  ges- 
tures of  counting  on  fingers  and  toes.  Beyond  this, 
another  strong  argument  is  available,  which  indeed  covers 
almost  the  whole  range  of  the  problem.  The  numerical 
systems  of  the  world,  by  the  actual  schemes  of  their  arrange- 
ment, extend  and  confirm  the  opinion  that  counting  on 
fingers  and  toes  was  man's  original  method  of  reckoning, 
taken  up  and  represented  in  language.  To  count  the 
fingers  on  one  hand  up  to  5,  and  then  go  on  with  a  second 


'  See  Farrar,  'Chapters  on  Language,' p.  223.  Benloew,  ' Recherches  sur 
rOrigine  dea  Noms  do  Nombro  ; '  Pictet,  'Origines  Indo-Europ. "  part  ii.  ch. 
ii.;  Pott,  'Ziihlmethode,'  p.  128,  &c. ;  A.  v.  Humboldt's  plausible  compari- 
lion  between  Skr.  pancha,  5,  and  Pel's,  penjeh,  'the  palm  of  tho  hand  vith  the 
fingers  spread  out ;  tho  outspread  foot  of  a  bird,'  as  though  5  wero  called 
pancha  from  being  like  a  hand,  is  erroneous.  The  Persian  penjeh  is  itselr' 
derived  from  the  numeral  5,  as  in  Skr.  the  hand  is  called  pancha^dkha,  '  the 
five-branched.'  Tho  same  formation  is  found  in  English ;  slang  describesi  a 
man's  hand  s  his  '  fives,'  or  '  bunch  of  fives,'  thence  tho  name  of  the  game 
of  fives,  played  by  striking  tho  ball  with  the  open  hand,  a  term  which 
has  made  its  way  out  of  slang  into  accepted  language.  Burton  describes 
the  polite  Arab  at  a  meal,  calling  his  companion's  attention  to  a  grain  of 
rice  fallen  into  his  beard.  '  The  gazelle  is  in  tho  garden,'  he  says,  with  a 
smile.     'Wo  will  huut  licr  with  the  five,'  in  the  reply. 


tb  what  is 

or  quasi- 

e  been  able 

lilologically 

.  aid  of  the 

■  succeed  in 

supporting 

3ory.     This 

view  here 

ken  up  to 

as  a  mere 

allow  it  to 

from  which 

id. 

of  numeral 

wing  in  the 

ces  of  digit 

of  the  ges- 

3yond   this, 

ieed  covers 

numerical 

ir  arrange- 

ounting  on 

reckoning, 

count  the 

I  a  second 

lecherches  sur 
J). '  part  ii.  ch. 
Hiblo  compari- 
liand  v'ith  the 
5  weio  called 
KHjch  is  itself 
chai;dkha,  'tlie 
,ng  describeii  a 
le  of  the  game 
I  term  which 
rton  describes 
to  a  grain  of 
e  says,  with  a 


THE   ABT   OF  COUNTING. 


261 


five,  is  a  notation  by  fives,  or  as  it  is  called,  a  quinary  nota- 
tion. To  count  by  the  use  of  both  hands  to  10,  and  thence 
to  reckon  by  tens,  is  a  decimal  notation.  To  go  on  by 
hands  and  feet  to  20,  and  thence  to  reckon  by  twenties,  is  a 
vigesimal  notation.  Now  though  in  the  larger  proportion  of 
known  languages,  no  distinct  mention  of  fingers  and  toes, 
hands  and  feet,  is  observable  in  the  numerals  themselves, 
yet  the  very  schemes  of  quinary,  decimal,  and  vigesimal  no- 
tation remain  to  vouch  for  such  hand-and-foot-counting 
having  been  the  original  method  on  which  they  were 
founded.  There  seems  no  doubt  that  the  number  of  the 
fingers  led  to  the  adoption  of  the  not  especially  suitable 
number  10  as  a  period  in  reckoning,  so  that  decimal 
arithmetic  is  based  on  human  anatomy.  This  is  so  obvious, 
that  it  is  curious  to  see  Ovid  in  his  well-known  lines  putting 
the  two  facts  close  together,  without  seeir  ^  that  the  second 
was  the  consequence  of  '■he  first. 

'Annus  erat,  decimum  cum  luna  receperat  orbem. 

Hie  numerus  magno  tunc  in  honore  fuit. 
Seu  quia  tot  digiti,  per  quos  numerate  solemus  : 

Seu  quia  bis  quino  femina  mense  parit  : 
Seu  quod  adusque  decern  numero  crescente  venitur, 

Principium  spatiis  sumitur  inde  novis.'^ 

In  surveying  the  languages  of  the  world  at  large,  it  is 
found  that  among  tribes  or  nations  far  enough  advanced  in 
arithmetic  to  count  up  to  five  in  words,  there  prevails,  with 
scarcely  an  exception,  a  method  founded  on  hand-counting, 
quinary,  decimal,  vigesimal,  or  combined  of  these.  For 
perfect  examples  of  the  quinary  method,  we  may  take  a 
Polynesian  series  which  runs  1,  2,  3,  4,  5,  5*1,  5-2,  &c. ;  or 
a  Melanesian  series  which  may  be  rendered  as  1,  2,  3,  4,  5, 
2nd  1,  2nd  2,  &c.  Quinary  leading  into  decimal  is  well 
shown  in  the  Feliata  series  1  .  .  5,  5-1  .  .  .  10,  lO-l  .  .  . 
10-5,  10.5-1  ...  20,  ...  30,  ...  40,  &c.  Pure  decimal 
may  be  instanced  from  Hebrew  1,2  .  .  .  10,  10-1  .  .  .  20, 
20-1  .  .  .  &e.     Pure  vigesimal  is  not  usual,  for  the  obvious 

»  Ovid,  Fast.  iii.  121. 


If  k 


nil; 


262 


THE   AHT   OF   COUNTING. 


i 


'Hi,,' 

at.  ■ 

c 


W" 


reason  that  a  set  of  independent  numerals  to  20  would  be 
inconvenient,  but  it  takes  on  from  quinary,  as  in  Aztec, 
which  may  be  analyzed  as  1,  2  .  .  .  5,  5«1  .  .  .  10,  lO-l  .  .  . 
10-5,  10.5-1  ...  20,  20-1  .  .  .  20-10,  20-10-1  ...  40,  &c. ; 
or  from  decimal,  as  in  Basque,  1  ...  10,  10-1  .  .  .  20, 20-1 
.  .  .  20-10,  -20-10-1  ...  40,  8cc.^  It  seems  unnecessary  to 
bring  forward  here  the  mass  of  linguistic  details  required  for 
any  general  demonstration  of  these  principles  of  numeration 
among  the  races  of  the  world.  Prof.  Pott,  of  Hallv,  :;as  treated 
the  subject  on  elaborate  philological  evidence,  in  a  special 
monograph.^  which  is  incidentally  the  most  extensive  collec- 
tion of  details  relating  to  numerals,  indispensable  to  stud  ints 
occupied  with  such  enquiries.  For  the  present  purpose  the 
following  rough  generalization  may  suffice,  that  the  quinary 
system  is  frequent  among  the  lower  races,  among  whom  also 
the  vigesimal  system  is  considerably  developed,  but  the  ten- 
dency of  the  higher  nations  has  been  to  avoid  the  one  as 
too  scanty,  and  the  other  as  too  cumbrous,  and  to  use  the  in- 
termediate decimal  system.  These  differences  in  the  usage  of 
various  tribes  and  nations  do  not  interfere  with,  but  rather 
confirm,  the  general  principle  which  is  their  common  cause, 
that  man  originally  learnt  to  reckon  from  his  fingers  and  toes, 
and  in  various  ways  stereotyped  in  language  the  result  of  this 
primitive  method. 

Some  curious  points  as  to  the  relation  of  these  systems 
may  be  noticed  in  Europe.  It  was  observed  of  a  certain 
deaf-and-dumb  boy,  Oliver  Caswell,  that  L^  learnt  to  Cvyunt 
as  high  as  50  on  his  fingers,  but  always  '  fived,'  reckoning, 
for  instance,  18  objects  as  'both  hands,  one  hand,  three 
f  igers.' '   The  suggestion  has  been  made  that  the  Greek  use 

'  The  actual  word-numerala  of  the  two  quinary  series  ara  given  as  ex- 
amples. Triton's  Bay,  1,  samosi ;  2,  roMi ;  3,  toutm'oe  ;  4,  faat ;  5,  rimi  ;  6, 
rim-samos ;  7,  rim-roeeti ;  8,  rim-foincroe ;  9,  rim-faat ;  10,  woetsja.  Lifu,  1, 
pacha  ;  2,  lo  ;  3,  ktin  ;  4,  thack  ;  5,  thahumb  ;  6,  lo-acha  ;  7,  lo-a-lo  ;  8,  lo-kunn  ; 
9,  lo-ihack ;  10,  ie-henncie. 

'  A.  F.  Pott,  '  Die  Quinare  und  Vigesimale  Zillilmothodo  bei  VOlkern 
ailer  Welttheile,'  Halle,  1847 ;  supplemented  in  '  Festgabe  zur  xxv. 
Ver."immlung  Deutschor  Pliilol  )gan,  &c.,  in  Hallo'  (1867). 

•'  'Account  of  Laura  Bridgman,'  London,  1845,  p.  15"J. 


THE   ABT  OP  COUNTING. 


263 


JO  would  be 
as  in  Aztec, 
LO,  101  .  .  . 

.  .  40,  &c. ; 
.  .  .  20, 20.1 
necessaiy  to 
required  for 
numeration 
,  :;as  treated 
in  a  s^^ecial 
nsive  collec- 
;  to  stud  ints 
purpose  the 
the  quinary 
5  whom  also 
but  the  ten- 

the  one  as 
>  use  the  in- 
the  usage  of 
,  but  rather 
imon  cause, 
ers  and  toes, 
esult  ofthis 

se  systems 

■  a  certain 

nt  to  Count 

reckoning, 

land,  three 

e  Greek  use 

3  given  as  ex- 
t;  5,  rimi ;  6, 
KJa.  Lifu,  1, 
0  ;  8,  lo-kunn  ; 

bei  VOlkern 
be    zur   xxv. 


of  TTfjUTrafetr,  'to  five,' as  an  expression  for  counting,  is  a  trace 
of  rude  old  quinary  numeration  (compare  Finnish  loJchet '  to 
count,'  from  lokke  '  ten  ').  Certainly,  the  Roman  numerals 
I,  II,  ...  V,  VI  ...  X,  XI  ..  .  XV,  XVI,  &c.,  form  a 
remarkably  well-defined  written  quinary  system.  Eemains 
of  vigesimal  counting  are  still  more  instructive.  Counting 
by  twenties  is  a  strongly  marked  Keltic  characteristic.  The 
cumbrous  vigesimal  notation  could  hardly  be  brought  more 
strongly  into  view  in  any  savage  race  than  in  such  examples 
as  Gaelic  aon  deug  is  da  fhichead  '  one,  ten,  and  two 
twenties,'  i.e.,  51 ;  or  Welsh  tinarbymtheg  ar  ugain  'one 
and  fifteen  over  twenty,'  i.e.,  36  ;  or  Breton  unnek  ha  tri- 
ugent  'eleven  and  three  twenties,'  i.e.,  71.  Now  French, 
being  a  Romance  language,  has  a  regular  system  of  Latin 
tens  up  to  100 ;  cinquante,  soixante,  septante,  huitante, 
nonante,  v/hich  are  to  be  found  still  in  use  in  districts 
within  the  limits  of  the  French  language,  as  in  Belgium. 
Nevertheless,  the  clumsy  system  of  reckoning  by  twenties 
has  broken  out  through  the  decimal  system  in  France. 
The  septante  is  to  a  great  extent  suppressed,  coixante- 
quatorze,  for  instance,  standing  for  74  •,  quatre-vingts  has 
fairly  established  itself  for  80,  and  its  use  continues  into 
the  nineties,  quotre-vingt-treize  for  93  ;  in  numbers  above 
100  we  find  six-vingts,  sept-vingts,  huit-vingts,  for  120, 140, 
160,  and  a  certain  hospital  has  its  name  of  Les  Quinze- 
vingts  from  its  300  inmates.  It  is,  perhaps,  the  most 
reasonable  explanation  of  this  curious  phenomenon,  to 
suppose  the  earlier  Keltic  system  of  France  uo  have  held  its 
ground,  modelling  the  later  French  into  its  own  ruder 
shape.  In  England,  the  Anglo-Saxon  numeration  is 
decimal,  hund-seofontig,  70  ;  hund-eahtatig,  80  ;  hund-ni- 
gontig,  90;  hund-teontig,  100;  hund-enlufontig,  110;  hund- 
tivelfiig,  120.  It  may  be  here  also  by  Keltic  survival  that 
the  vigesimal  reckoning  by  the  '  score,'  threescore  and  ten, 
fourscore  and  thirteen,  &c.,  gained  a  popition  in  English 
which  it  has  not  yet  totally  lost.^ 
•  Compare  the  RajmaLali  tribes  adopting  Hindi  numerals,  yet  reckoning 


H! 


■hi. 


vf 


ii 
I, 


264 


THE   ART   OP   COUNTING. 


i^:.'' 


W 


W'  - 


»i. 


4- ; 


Wit 

c 

««> 
«:, 
m 

m. 
I 

Hi  ' 

If,.'    ': 

lu, 


From  some  minor  details  in  numeration,  ethnological 
hints  may  be,  gained.  Among  rude  tribes  with  scanty 
series  of  numerals,  combination  to  make  out  new  numbers 
ift  very  soon  resorted  to.  Among  Australian  tribes  addition 
makes  '  two-one,'  '  two-two/  express  3  and  4 ;  in  Guachi 
*  two-two  '  is  4 ;  :n  San  Antonio  '  four  and  two-one  '  is  7. 
The  plan  of  making  numerals  by  subtraction  is  known  in 
North  America,  and  is  well  shown  in  the  Aino  language  of 
Yesso,  where  the  words  for  8  and  9  obviously  mean  '  two 
from  ten,'  '  one  from  ten.'  Multiplication  appears,  as  in 
San  Antonio,  '  two-and-one-two,'  and  in  a  Tupi  dialect 
'  two-three,'  to  express  6.  Division  seems  not  known  for 
such  purposes  aiaong  the  lower  races,  and  quite  exceptional 
among  the  higher.  Facts  of  this  class  show  variety  in  the 
inventive  devices  of  mankind,  and  independence  in  their 
formation  cf  language.  They  are  consisti  nt  at  the  same 
time  with  the  general  principles  of  hand-counting.  The 
traces  of  what  might  be  called  binary,  ternary,  quaternary, 
senary  reckoning,  which  turn  on  3,  3,  4,  6,  are  mere 
varieties,  leading  up  to,  or  lapsing  into,  quinary  and  decimal 
methods. 

The  contrast  is  a  striking  one  between  the  educated 
European,  with  his  easy  use  of  his  boundless  numeral  series, 
and  the  Tasmanian,  who  reckons  3,  or  anything  beyond  3, 
as  '  many,'  and  makes  shift  by  Lis  whole  hand  to  reach  the 
limit  of  '  man,'  that  is  to  say,  5.  This  contrast  is  due  to 
arrest  of  development  in  ihe  savage,  whose  mind  remains  in 
the  childish  state  which  the  beginning  of  one  of  our  nur- 
sery number-rhymes  illustrates  curiously.    It  runs — 

'One's  none, 
Two's  some, 
Three's  a  many, 
Four's  a  penny, 
Five's  a  little  hundred.' 


by  twenties.  Shaw,  1.  c.  The  use  'if  a  '  score '  as  an  indefinite  number 
in  England,  and  similarly  (.f  20  in  France,  of  40  'n  the  Hebrew  of  the  Old 
Testament  and  the  Arabic  of  the  Thousand  and  One  Nights,  may  be  among 
other  traces  of  vigesimal  reckoning. 


hnological 
th  scanty 
T  numbers 
9  addition 
in  Guachi 
■one '  is  7. 
known  in 
mguage  of 
nean  '  two 
iarsj  as  in 
pi  dialect 
cnown  for 
xceptional 
ety  in  the 
:e  in  their 

the  same 
ting.  The 
uaternary, 

are  mere 
id  decimal 

educated 

jral  series, 

beyond  2, 

reach  the 

is  due  to 

emains  in 

our  nur- 


ite  number 
sr  of  the  Old 
y  be  among 


THE   ART   OP  COUNTING. 


265 


To  notice  this  state  of  things  among  savages  and  chil- 
dren raises  interesting  points  as  to  the  early  history  of 
grammar.  W.  von  Humboldt  suggested  the  analogy  be- 
tween the  savage  notion  of  3  as  'many'  and  the  gram- 
matical use  of  3  to  form  a  kind  of  superlative,  in  forms 
of  which  '  trismegistt  s,'  '  ter  felix,'  '  thrice  blest,'  are 
familiar  instances.  The  relation  of  single,  dual,  and  plural 
is  well  shown  pictorially  in  the  Egyptian  hieroglyphics, 
where  the  picture  of  an  object,  a  horse  for  instance, 
is  marked  by  a  single  line  |  if  but  one  is  meant,  by  two 
lines  I  I  if  two  are  meant,  by  three  lines  |  |  |  if  three  or 
an  indefinite  plural  number  are  meant.  The  scheme  of 
grammatical  number  in  some  of  the  most  ancient  and  im- 
portant languages  of  the  world  is  laid  down  on  the  same 
savage  principle.  Egyptian,  Arabic,  Hebrew,  Sanskrit, 
Greek,  Gothic,  are  examples  of  languages  using  singular, 
dual,  and  plural  number ;  but  the  tendency  of  higher  intel- 
lectual culture  has  been  to  discard  the  plan  as  inconvenient 
and  unprofitable,  and  only  to  distinguish  singular  and 
plural.  No  doubt  the  dual  held  its  place  by  inheritance 
from  an  early  period  of  culture,  and  Dr.  D.  Wilson  seems 
justified  in  his  opinion  that  it  'preserves  to  us  the  me- 
morial of  that  stage  of  thought  when  all  beyond  two  was 
an  idea  of  indefinite  number.'  ^ 

When  two  races  at  different  levels  of  culture  come  into 
contact,  the  ruder  people  adopt  new  art  and  knowledge,  but 
at  the  same  time  their  own  special  culture  usually  comes  to 
a  standstill,  and  even  falls  off.  It  is  thus  with  the  art  of 
counting.  We  may  be  able  to  prove  that  the  lower  race 
had  actually  been  making  great  and  independent  progress 
in  it,  but  when  the  higher  race  comes  with  a  convenient 
and  unlimited  means  of  not  only  naming  all  imaginable 
numbers,  but  of  wi'iting  them  down  and  reckoning  with 
thera  by  means  of  a  few  simple  figures,  what  likelihood  is 
there  that  the  barbarian's  clumsy  methods  should  be  farther 
worked  out  ?  As  to  the  ways  in  which  the  numerals  of  the 
'  D.  Wilson,  '  rrehistoric  Man,'  p.  616. 


m 
m 


m 


m 


If    •! 


:.  < 


266 


THE   ART  OF  COUNTING. 


IP" 

I 
k- 


superior  race  are  grafted  on  the  language  of  the  inferior, 
Captain  Grant  describes  the  native  slaves  of  Equatorial 
Africa  occupying  \iheir  lounging  hours  in  learning  the 
numerals  of  their  Arab  masters.^  Father  Dobrizhoffer's 
account  of  the  arithmetical  relations  between  the  native 
Brazilians  and  the  Jesuits  is  a  good  description  of  the 
intellectual  contact  between  savages  and  missionaries. 
The  Guaranis,  it  appears,  counted  up  to  4  with  their  native 
numerals,  and  when  they  got  beyond,  they  would  say 
'  innumerable.'  '  But  as  counting  is  both  of  manifold  use 
in  common  life,  and  in  the  confessional  absolutely  indis- 
pensable in  making  a  complete  confession,  the  Indians  were 
daily  taught  at  the  public  catechising  in  the  church  to 
count  in  Spanish.  On  Sundays  the  whole  people  used  to 
count  with  a  loud  voice  in  Spanish,  from  1  to  1,000.'  The 
missionary,  it  is  true,  did  not  find  the  natives  use  the 
numbers  thus  learnt  very  accurately — '  We  were  washing 
at  a  blackamoor,'  he  says.^  If,  however,  we  examine  the 
modern  vocabularies  of  savage  or  low  barbarian  tribes,  they 
will  be  found  to  afford  interesting  evidence  how  really 
effective  the  influence  of  higher  on  lower  civilization  has 
been  in  this  matter.  So  far  as  the  ruder  system  is  com- 
plete and  moderately  convenient,  it  may  stand,  but  where 
it  ceases  or  grows  cumbrous,  and  sometimes  at  a  lower 
limit  than  this,  we  can  see  the  cleverer  foreigner  taking  it 
into  his  own  hands,  supplementing  or  supplanting  the 
scanty  numerals  of  the  lower  race  by  his  own.  The  higher 
race,  though  advanced  enough  to  act  thus  on  the  lower, 
need  not  be  itself  at  an  extremely  high  level.  Markham 
observes  that  the  Jivaras  of  the  Maranon,  with  native 
numerals  up  to  5,  adopt  for  higher  numbers  those  of  the 
Quichua,  the  language  of  the  Peruvian  Incas.^  The  cases 
of  the  indigenes  of  India  are  instructive.  The  Khonds 
reckon  1  and  2  in  native  words,  and  then  take  to  borrowed 


»  Grant  in  'Tr.  Eth.  Soc'  vol.  iii.  p.  "tO. 

'■'  Dobrizhoffer,  'Gesoh.  der  Abiponer,'  p.  205 ;  Eng.  Trans,  vol.  ii.  p.  171. 

'  Markham  in  'Tr.  Eth.  Soc'  vol.  iii.  p.  166. 


THE   ART  OP  COUNTING. 


267 


be  inferior, 

Equatorial 

arning  the 

brizhoffer's 

the  native 

Lon   of  the 

issionaries. 

heir  native 

would  say 

anifold  use 

itely  indis- 

idians  were 

church   to 

pie  used  to 

000.'    The 

Bs  use  the 

'e  washing 

camine  the 

/ribes,  they 

low  really 

zation  has 

)m  is  com- 

but  where 

t  a  lower 

taking  it 

,nting  the 

he  higher 

le  lower, 

Markham 

th  native 

)se  of  the 

The  cases 

Khonds 

borrowed 


)l.  ii.  p.  171. 


Hindi  numerals.     The  Oraon  tribes,  while  belonging  to  a 
race  of  the  Dra vidian  str   >     and  having  had  a  series  of 
native  numerals  accordingly,  appear  to  have  given  up  their 
use  beyond  4,  or  sometimes  even  2,  and  adopted  Hindi 
numerals  in  their  place.^     The  South  American  Conibos 
were  observed  to  count  1  and  2  with  their  own  words,  and 
then  to  borrow  Spanish  numerals,  much  as  a   Brazilian 
dialect  of  the  Tupi  family  is  noticed  in  the  last  century  as 
having  lost  the  native  5,  and  settled  down  into  using  the 
old  native  numerals  up  to  3,  and  then  continuing  in  Portu- 
guese.^    In  Melanesia,  the  Anna  torn  language  can   only 
count  in  its  own  numerals  to  5,  and  then  borrows  English 
s'lka,  seven,  eet,  nain,  &c.     In  some  Polynesian  islands, 
though   the  native  numerals  are   extensive   enough,  the 
confusion  arising  from  reckoning  by  pairs  and  fours  as  well 
as  units,  has  induced  the  natives  to  escape  from  perplexity 
by  adopting  huneH  and  tausani.^    And  though  the  Esqui- 
maux counting  by  hands,  feet,  and  whole  men,  is  capable  of 
expressing  high  numbers,  it  becomes  practically  clumsy 
even  when  it  gets  among  the  scores,  and  the  Greenlander 
has  done  well  to  adopt  untrite  and  tuainte  from  his  Danish 
teachers.     Similarity  of  numerals  in  two  languages  is  a 
point  to  which   philologists   attach  great   aj.d   deserved 
importance  in  the  question  whether  they  aio  ^o  be  •  con- 
sidered as  sprung  from  a  common  stock.    Put  it  is  clear 
that  so  far  as  one  race  may  have  borrowed  numerals  from 
another,  this  evidence  breaks  down.     The  fact  that  this 
borrowing  extends  as  low  as  3,  and  may  even  go  still  lower 
for  all  we  know,  is  a  reason  for  using  the  argument  from 
connected  numerals  cautiously,  as  tending  rather  to  prove 
intercourse  than  kinship. 

At  the  other  end  of  the  scale  of  civilization,  the  adoption 


1  Latham,  '  Coinp.  Phil.'  p.  186  ;  Shaw  in  '  As.  Res.'  vol.  iv.  p.  96 ; 
'  Journ.  As.  Soc.  Bengal,'  1866,  part  ii.  pp.  27,  204,  251. 

^  St.  Cricq  in  '  Bulletin  de  la  Soc.  de  G6og.'  1853,  p.  286  ;  Pott,  'Zahlmo- 
thodc  '  p.  7. 

•'  Gabelentz,  p.  89  ;  Hale,  1.  c. 


b::-.  ' 


•  ;]' 


2G8 


THK   ART  OF  COUNTING. 


I"... 

IHR:n-': 


f 


of  numerals  ire  Uiition  to  nation  still  presents  interesting 
philological  points.  Our  own  language  give  ('urious 
instanp  s,  as  aecovd  and  tnlllion.  The  manner  iu  which 
English,  in  common  with  German,  Dutch,  Danish,  and 
even  Russian,  has  adopted  MedijBval  Latin  dozena  (from 
duodeclvi)  shows  how  convenient  an  arrangement  it  was 
found  to  buy  and  sell  by  the  dozen,  and  how  necessary  it 
was  to  have  a  special  word  for  it.  But  the  borrowing 
process  has  gone  farther  than  this.  If  it  were  asked  how 
many  sets  of  numerals  are  now  in  use  among  English- 
speaking  people  in  England,  the  probable  reply  would  be  one 
set,  the  regular  one,  two,  three,  &c.  There  exist,  however, 
two  borrowed  acts  as  well.  One  is  the  well-known  dicing- 
set,  ace,  deuce,  tray,  cater,  cinque,  size ;  thus  size-ace  is  '  6 
and  one,'  cinques  or  sinks,  *  double  five.'  These  came  to 
us  from  France,  and  correspond  with  the  common  French 
numerals,  except  ace,  which  is  Latin  as,  a  word  of  great 
philological  interest,  meaning  'one.'  The  other  borrowed 
set  is  to  be  found  in  the  Slang  Dictionary.  It  appears 
that  the  English  street-folk  have  adopted  as  a  means  of 
secret  corn  oinni  cation  a  set  of  Italian  numerals  from  the 
organ-grii.  iurs  and  image-sellers,  or  by  other  ways 
through  '.vhioli  Italian  or  Lingua  Franca  is  brought  into 
the  low  neighbourhoods  of  London.  In  so  doing,  they 
have  performed  a  philological  operation  not  only  curious, 
but  instructive.  By  copying  such  expressions  as  Italian 
due  soldi,  ire  soldi,  as  equivalent  to  '  twopence,'  '  three- 
pence,' the  woi'd  saltee  became  a  recognized  slang  term  for 
'  penny,'  and  pence  are  reckoned  as  follows : — 


Otuy  saltee    . 

Dooe  saltee    . 

Triy  saltee   . 

Quarterer  saltee    . 

Chinker  saltee 

Say  saltee 

Say  oney  saltee  or  setter  saltee 

Say  dooe  saltee  or  otter  saltee 

Say  tray  saltee  or  tiobha  saltee 


Id,  uno  soldo. 
2d.  due  soldi. 
3d.  tre  soldi. 
4d.  quattro  soldi. 
M.  cinque  soldi. 
6d.  sei  soldi. 
7d.  sette  soldi. 
Sd.  otto  soldi. 
9d.  nove  soldi. 


IP 


interesting 
't.    curious 
iu  which 
mish,   and 
ena  (from 
snt  it  was 
ecessary  it 
borrowing 
isked  how 
J  English- 
uldbe  one 
,  however, 
vn  dicing- 
?-ace  is  '  6 
B  came  to 
3n  French 
i  of  great 
borrowed 
t  appears 
means  of 
from  the 
ler    ways 
ught  into 
ling,  they 
curious, 
I  Italian 
'  three- 
term  for 


Ido. 
Idi. 
di. 

0  soldi, 
soldi. 
Ji. 

oldi. 
Idi. 
)ldi. 


THE   ART  OP  OOUNTINO. 


Say  quarterev  mllfi'  or  dacha  aaltee 
Say  chinker  xaltee  or  dacha  oney  naltee 

Oney  beong 

A  heong  nay  saltee         .         .         .         , 
Dooe  heouy  nay  saltee  or  mndea  carooit . 


269 

lOrf.  di     1  soldi. 
\ld,  uiulici  soldi. 
1«. 

Is.  Gd. 

2«.  Cof.  (hall   crown, 
ui'  /za  corona.) ' 


One  of  these  series  simply  adv^pt"  T*  ''an  n''Morals 
decimally.     But  the   other,  when  it    la-  0,  Hav- 

ing had  enough  of  novelty,  makes  7     y  le,'    and 

so  continues.     It  is  for  no  abstract  re:  6      thus 

made  the  turning-point,  but  simply   be*  lu  coster- 

monger  is  adding  pence  up   to  the  silver  ace.  and 

then  adding  pence  again  up  to  the  shilling.  Thus  our  duo- 
decimal coinage  has  led  to  the  practice  of  counting  by 
sixes,  and  produced  a  philological  curiosity,  a  real  senary 
notation. 

On  evidence  such  as  has  been  brought  forward  in  this 
essay,  the  apparent  relations  of  savage  to  civilized  culture, 
as  regards  the  Art  of  Counting,  may  now  be  brietiy  stated 
in  conclusion.  The  principal  methods  to  which  the 
development  of  the  higher  arithmetic  are  due,  lie  outside 
the  problem.  They  are  mostly  ingenious  plans  of  express 
ing  numerical  relations  by  written  symbols.  Among  them 
are  the  Semitic  scheme,  and  the  Greek  derived  from  it,  of 
using  the  alphabet  as  a  series  of  numerical  symbols,  a  plan 
not  quite  discarded  by  ourselves,  at  least  for  ordinals,  as  in 
schedules  A,  B,  &c. ;  the  use  of  initials  of  numeral  words 
as  figures  for  the  numbers  themselves,  as  in  Greek  FI  and 
A  for  5  and  10,  Roman  C  and  M  for  100  and  1,000 ;  the 
device  of  expressing  fractions,  shown  in  a  rudimentary 
stage  in  Greek  y',  b',  for  ^,  \,  y*  for  J  ;  the  introduction  of  the 
cipher  or  zero,  by  means  of  which  the  Arabic  or  Indian 
numerals  have  their  value  according  to  their  position  in  a 
decimal  order  corresponding  to  the  succession  of  the  rows  of 
the  abacus ;  and  lastly,  the  modem  notation  of  decimal 
fractions  by  carrying  down  below  the  unit  the  proportional 

'  J.  C.  Hotten,  'Slang  Dictionary,'  p.  218. 


■i 


'^•J 

P 


IMAGE  EVALUATION 
TEST  TARGET  (MT-3) 


/, 


^ 


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1.0 


I.I 


Mim»    12.5 

150     "^~       Iffij^H 

u    Hi 

I   VS.    12.0 


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mm 


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Photographic 

Sciences 
Corporation 


23  WEST  MAIN  STREET 

WEBSTER,  N.Y.  14580 

(716)  872-4503 


270 


THE  ART  OF  COUNTING. 


I* 

r 


.(  *»' 


!^ 


1      te*' 


order  which  for  ages  had  been  in  use  above  it.  The  ancient 
Egyptian  and  the  still-used  Roman  and  Chinese  numeration 
are  indeed  founded  on  savage  picture-writing,^  while  the 
abacus  and  the  swan-pan,  the  one  still  a  valuable  school- 
instrument,  and  the  other  in  full  practical  use,  have  their 
germ  in  the  savage  counting  by  groups  of  objects,  as  when 
South  Sea  Islanders  count  with  cocoa-nut  stalks,  putting  a 
little  one  aside  every  time  they  dome  to  10,  and  a  large  one 
when  they  come  to  100,  or  when  African  negroes  reckon 
with  pebbles  or  nuts,  and  every  time  they  come  to  5  put 
them  aside  in  a  little  heap.^ 

We  are  here  especially  concerned  with  gesture-counting 
on  the  fingers,  as  an  absolutely  savage  art  still  in  use  among 
children  and  peasants^  and  with  the  system  of  numeral 
words,  as  known  to  all  mankind,  appearing  scantily  among 
the  lowest  tribes,  and  reaching  within  savage  limits  to  deve- 
lopments which  the  highest  civilization  has  only  improved  in 
detail.  These  two  methods  of  computation  by  gesture  and 
word  tell  the  story  of  primitive  arithmetic  in  a  way  that  can 
be  hardly  perverted  or  misunderstood.  We  see  the  savage 
who  can  only  count  to  2  or  3  or  4  in  words,  but  can  go 
farther  in  dumb  show.  He  has  words  for  hands  and  fingers, 
feet  and  toes,  and  the  idea  strikes  him  that  the  words  which 
describe  the  gesture  will  serve  also  to  express  its  meaning, 
and  they  become  his  numerals  accordingly.  This  did  not 
happen  only  once,  it  happened  among  different  races  in 
distant  regions,  for  such  terms  as  '  hand  'for  5,  '  hand- 
one '  for  6,  'hands'  for  10,  'two  on  the  foot'  for  12, 
'hands  and  feet'  or  '  man'  for  20,  'two  men'  for  40,  &c., 
show  such  uniformity  as  is  due  to  common  principle,  but 
also  such  variety  as  is  due  to  independent  working-out. 
These  are  *  pointer-facts '  which  have  their  place  and 
explanation  in  a  development-theory  of  culture,  while  a 
degeneration-theory  totally  fails  to  take  them  in.  They  are 
distinct  records  of  development,  and  of  independent  deve- 

'  'Early  History  of  Mankind,'  p.  106. 

«  Ellis,  '  Polyn.  Bes,'  vol.  i.  p.  01 ;  Klemm,  C.  G.  vol.  iii.  p.  383. 


!i: 


THE  ABT  OP  COUNTING. 


271 


be  ancient 
iimeration 
while  the 
le  school- 
bave  their 
},  as  when 
putting  a 

large  one 
es  reckon 

to  5  put 

5-counting 

ise  among 

F  numeral 

ily  among 

,s  to  deve- 

iproved  in 

jsture  and 

y  that  can 

he  savage 

[it  can  go 

id  fingers, 

rds  which 

meaning, 

did  not 

races  in 

,  *  hand- 

for  12, 

r  40,  &c., 

ciple,  but 

king-out. 

ace   and 

while  a 

They  are 

mt  deve- 

.  383. 


lopment,  among  savage  tribes  to  whom  some  writers  on 
civilization  have  rashly  denied  the  very  faculty  of  self- 
improvement.  The  original  meaning  of  a  great  part  of  the 
stock  of  numerals  of  the  lower  races,  especially  of  those  from 
1  to  4,  not  suited  to  be  named  as  hand-numerals,  is  obscure. 
They  may  have  been  named  from  comparison  with  objects, 
in  a  way  which  is  shown  actually  to  happen  in  such  forms 
as  'together'  for  2,  'throw'  for  3,  'knot'  for  4;  but 
any  concrete  meaning  we  may  guess  them  to  have  once  had 
seems  now  by  modification  and  mutilation  to  have  passed 
out  of  knowledge. 

Remembering  how  ordinary  words  change  and  lose  their 
traces  of  original  meaning  in  the  course  of  ages,  and  that  in 
numerals  such  breaking  down  of  meaning  is  actually 
desirable,  to  make  them  fit  for  pure  arithmetical  symbols, 
we  cannot  wonder  that  so  large  a  proportion  of  existing 
numerals  should  have  no  discernible  etymology.  This  is 
especially  true  of  the  1,  2,  3,  4,  among  low  and  high  races 
alike,  the  earliest  to  be  made,  and  therefore  the  earliest  to 
lose  their  primary  significance.  Beyond  these  low  numbers 
the  languages  of  the  higher  and  lower  races  show  a  remark- 
able difference.  The  hand-and-foot  numerals,  so  prevalent 
and  unmistakeable  in  savage  tongues  like  Esquimaux  and 
Zulu,  are  scarcely  if  at  all  traceable  in  the  great  languages 
of  civilization,  such  as  Sanskrit  and  Greek,  Hebrew  and 
Arabic.  This  state  of  things  is  quite  conformable  to  the 
development-theory  of  languagt.  We  may  argue  that 
it  was  in  comparatively  recent  times  that  savages  arrived 
at  the  invention  of  hand-numerals,  and  that  therefore 
the  etymology  of  such  numerals  remains  obvious.  But 
it  by  no  means  follows  from  the  non-appearance  of  such 
primitive  forms  in  cultured  Asia  and  Europe,  that  they  did 
not  exist  there  in  remote  ages  ;  they  may  since  have  been 
rolled  and  battered  like  pebbles  by  the  stream  of  time,  till 
their  original  shapes  can  no  longer  be  made  out.  Lastly, 
among  savage  and  civilized  races  alike,  the  general  frame- 
work of  numeration  stands  throughout  the  world  as  an 


|- 


^■- 


272 


THE   ART  OF  COUNTING. 


abiding  monument  of  primaeval  culture.  This  framework, 
the  all  but  universal  scheme  of  reckoning  by  fives,  tens,  and 
twenties,  shows  that  the  childish  and  savage  practice  of 
counting  on  fingers  and  toes  lies  at  the  foundation  of  our 
arithmetical  science.  Ten  seems  the  most  convenient 
arithmetical  basis  ofiered  by  systems  founded  on  hand- 
counting,  but  twelve  would  have  been  better,  and  duodecimal 
arithmetic  is  in  fact  a  protest  against  the  less  convenient 
decimal  arithmetic  in  ordinary  use.  The  case  is  the  not 
uncommon  one  of  high  civilization  bearing  evident  traces  of 
the  rudeness  of  its  origin  in  ancient  barbaric  life. 


e 


I' 


t 

€ 


framework. 
s,  tens,  and 
practice  of 
tion  of  our 
convenient 
on  hand- 
duodecimal 
convenient 
is  the  not 
nt  traces  of 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


MYTHOLOGY. 


Mythic  Fancy  based,  like  other  thought,  on  Experience — Mythology  affords 
evidence  for  studying  laws  of  Imagination — Change  in  public  opinion  as 
to  credibility  of  Myths — Myths  rationalized  into  Allegory  and  History 
— Ethnological  import  and  treatment  of  Myth — Myth  to  be  studied  in 
actual  existence  and  growth  among  modern  savages  and  barbarians 
— Original  sources  of  Myth — Early  doctrines  of  general  animation  of 
Nature — Personification  of  Sun,  Moon,  and  Stars  ;  Water-spout,  Sand- 
pillar,  Rainbow,  Waterfall,  Pestilence — Analogy  worked  into  Myth 
and  Metaphor — Myths  of  Rain,  Thunder,  &c.— Effect  of  Language  in 
formation  of  Myth — Mftt6Hiil  Personincaiion  primary,  Verbal  Personi- 
fication secondary — Grammatical  Gender,  male  and  female,  animate 
and  inanimate,  in  relation  to  Myth — Pi'oper  Names  of  objects  in  re- 
lation to  Myth — Mental  State  proper  to  promote  mythic  imagination 
— Doctrine  of  Werewolves — Phantasy  and  Fancy. 

Among  those  opinions  which  are  produced  by  a  little 
knowledge,  to  be  dispelled  by  a  little  more,  is  the  belief  in 
an  almost  boundless  creative  power  of  the  human  imagina- 
tion. The  superficial  student,  mazed  in  a  crowd  of  seem- 
ingly wild  and  lawless  fancies,  which  he  thinks  to  have  no 
reason  in  nature  nor  pattern  in  this  material  world,  at  first 
concludes  them  to  be  new  births  from  the  imagination  of  the 
poet,  the  tale-teller,  and  the  seer.  But  little  by  little,  in 
what  seemed  the  most  spontaneous  fiction,^  more  compre- 
hensive study  of  the  sources  of  poetry  and  roBoancfiJbegins 
tojdiafilose  A^Hiise  for  each  fancy,  an  education  that  has  led 
up  to  each  train  of  thought,  a  store  of  inherited  materials 
from  out  of  which  each  province  of  the  poet's  land  has  been 
shaped,  and  built  over,  and  peopled.  (Backward  from  our 
own  times,  the  course  of  mental  history  may  be  traced 

VOL.  I.  I 


"•"■) 


,!K^ 


274 


MYTHOLOGY. 


through  the  changes  wrought  by  modem  schools  of  thought 
and  fancy,  upon  an  intellectual  inheritance  handed  down  to 
them  from  earlier  generations.  And  through  remoter 
periods,  as  we  recede  more  nearly  towards  primitive  condi- 
tions of  our  race,  the  threads  which  connect  new  thought 
with  old  do  not  always  vanish  from  our  sight^.It  is  in 
large  measure  possible  to  follow  them  as  clues  leading  back 
to  that  actual  experience  of  nature  and  life,  which  is  the 
ultimate  source  of  human  fancy.  What  Matthew  Arnold 
has  written  of  Man's  thoughts  as  he  floats  along  the  River 
of  Time,  is  most  true  of  his  mythic  imagination : — 

'As  is  the  world  on  the  banks 
So  is  the  mind  of  the  man. 


mi 

.      tn 

,   1 

'    If 

,]t\ 


f 


m 

5/ life' 


Only  the  tract  where  he  sails 

He  wots  of:   only  the  thoughts, 

Raised  by  the  objects  he  passes,  are  his.' 

A  Impressions  thus  received  the  mind  will  modify  and  work 
upon,  transmitting  the  products  to  other  minds  in  shapes 
that  often  seem  new,  strange,  and  arbitrary,  but  which  yet 
result  from  processes  familiar  to  our  experience,  and  J;o  be 
found  at  work  in  our  own  individual  consciousnessj  The 
oflSce  of  our  thought  is  to  develxip,  to  xombine^  and  to 
derive,  rather  than  to  create ;  and  the  consistent  laws  it 
works  by  are  to  be  discerned  even  in  the  unsubstantial 
structures  of  the  imagination.  (Here,  as  elsewhere  in  the 
universe,  there  is  to  be  recognized  a  sequence  from  cause  to 
effect,  a  sequence  intelligible,  definite,  and  where  knowledge 
reaches  the  needful  exactness,  even  calculable.    J 

There  is  perhaps  no  better  subject-matter  through  which 
to  study  the  processes  of  the  imagination,  than  the  well- 
marked  incidents  of  mythical  storv.  ranging  as  they  do 
through  every^nown_period^of  civilization,  and  through  all 
the- physically  varied  tiibea  of  ma.nkind.  Here  the  divine 
Maui  of  New  Zealand,  fishing  up  the  island  with  his  en- 
chanted hook  from  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  will  take  his  place 
in  company  with  the  Indian  Vishnu,  diving  to  the  depth  of  the 


MYTHOLOGY. 


o- 


M 


of  thought 
ad  down  to 
h  remoter 
tive  condi- 
iW  thought 
jj_jlt  is  in 
sading  back 
hich  is  the 
lew  Arnold 
y  the  River 


fy  and  work 
Is  in  shapes 
t  which  yet 

and>to  be 
snessj  The 
ine^  and  to 
ent  laws  it 
isubstantial 
here  in  the 
om  cause  to 

knowledge 

ough  which 
n  the  well- 
as  they  do 
through  all 
the  divine 
ith  his  en- 
ce  his  place 
depth  of  the 


J 


275 


ocean  in  his  avatar  of  the  Boar,  to  bring  up  the  submerged 
earth  on  his  monstrous  tusks ;  and  here  Baiame  the  creator, 
whose  voice  the  rude  Australians  hear  in  the  rolling 
thunder,  will  sit  throned  by  the  side  of  Olympian  Zeus 
himself.  rStarting  with  the  bold  rough  nature-myths  into 
which  the  savage  moulds  the  lessons  he  has  learnt  from  his 
childlike  contemplation  of  the  universe,  the  ethnographer 
can  follow  these  rude  fictions  up  into  times  when  they  were 
shaped  and  incorporated  into  complex  mythologic  systems, 
gracefully  artistic  in  Greece,  stiff  and  monstrous  in  Mexico, 
swelled  into  bombastic  exaggeration  in  Buddhist  Asia.  He 
can  watch  how  the  mythology  of  classic  Europe,  once  so 
true  to  nature  and  so  quick  with  her  ceaseless  life,  fell 
among  the  commentators  to  be  plastered  with  aillegory  or 
euhemerized  into  dull  sham  history.  At  last,  in  the  midst 
of  modern jaxilization,  he  finds  the  classic  volumes  studied 
rather-iot-JJieir  manner  than  for  their  matter,  or  mainly 
valued  for  theirjiitiquarian  evidence  of  the_thoughts"  of 
former  times; [while  relics  of  structures  reared  with  skill 
and  strength  by  tEe'myth-makers  of  the  past  must  now  be 
sought  in  scraps  of  nursery  folk-lore,  in  vulgar  superstitions 
and  old  dying  legends,  in  thoughts  and  allusions  carried  on 
from  ancientjdays  by  the  perennial  stream  of  poetry  and 
romance,  in  fragments  of  old  opinion  which  still  hold  an  in- 
herited^ rank  gained  in  past  ages  of  intellectual  history. 
But  this  turning  of  mythology  to  account  as  a  means  of 
tracing  the-hiatory.  of -laLVi[g..oLmindj  is  a  branch,  of-  acieaee 
scarcely  diacoyered  till  the  present  century.  Before 
entering  here  on  some  researches  belonging  to  it,  there  will 
be  advantage  in  glancing  at  the  views  of  oldejjnythologists, 
to  show  through  what  changes  their  study  has  at  length 
reached  a  condition  in  which  it  has  a  scientific  value. 

It  is  a  momentous  phase  of  the  education  of  mankind, 
when  the  regularity  of  nature  has  so  imprinted  itself  upon 
men's  rnluHsTthat  they  b^in  to  wonder  how  it  is  that  the 
ancient  legends  which  they  were  brought  up  to  hear  with 
such  reverent  deTight,~should  describe  a  world  so  strangely 


«»<,-^ 


\    i 


276 


MYTHOLOaY. 


Hi 

^:- 

c- 

(!■■      ■■ 

ffi'' 

■,    -' 

'ppi 

1 

r 

ft- 

»«. 

w 

it 

•5. 

¥ 

'm 

li 

ft 
fa. 


[I 


different  from  their  own.  Why,  they  ask,  are  the  gods  and 
giants  and  monsters  no  longer  seen  to  lead  their  prodigious 
lives  on  earth — is  it  perchance  that  the  course  of  things  is 
changed  since  the  old  days  ?  Thus  it  seemed  to  Pausanias 
the  historian,  that  the  wide-grown  wickedness  of  the  world 
had  brought  it  to  pass  that  times  were  no  longer  as  of  old, 
when  Lykaon  was  turned  into  a  wolf,  and  Niobe  into  a 
stone,  when  men  still  sat  as  guests  at  table  with  the  gods, 
or  were  raised  like  Herakles  to  become  gods  themselves. 
Up  to  modem  times,  the  hypothesis  of  a  changed  world  has 
more  or  less  availed  to  remove  the  difficulty  of  belief  in 
ancient  wonder-tales.  Yet  though  always  holding  firmly  a 
partial  ground,  its  application  was  soon  limited  for  these 
obvious  reasons,  that  it  justified  falsehood  and  truth  alike 
with  even-handed  favour,  and  utterly  broke  down  that 
barrier  of  probability  which  in  some  measure  has  always 
separated  fact  from  fancy.  The  Greek  mind  found  other 
outlets  ic  the  problem.  In  the  words  of  Mr.  Grote,  the 
ancient  legends  «,'ere  cast  back  into  an  undefined  past,  to 
take  rank  among  the  hallowed  traditions  of  divine  or  heroic 
antiquity,  gratifying  to  extol  by  rhetoric,  but  repulsive  to 
scrutinize  in  argument.  Or  they  were  transformed  into 
shapes  more  familiar  to  experience,  as  when  Plutarch, 
telling  the  tale  of  Theseus,  begs  for  indulgent  hearers  to 
accept  mildly  the  archaic  story,  and  assures  them  that  he 
has  set  himself  to  purify  it  by  reason,  that  it  may  receive 
the  aspect  of  history.^  This  process  of  giving  fable  the 
aspesiLoLhistory,  this  profitless  art  of  transformingjmtriie 
impossibilities  into  untrue  possibilities,  has  been  carried  on 
by  the  ancients,  and  by  the  moderns  after  them,  especially 
according^to^the  two  following  methods, 
^en  have  for  ages  been  more  or  less  conscious  of  that 
great  mental  district  lying  between  disbelief  and  belief,  where 
room  is  found  for  all  mythic  interpretation,  good  or  bad. 
It  being  admitted  that  some  legend  is  not  the  real  narrative 

'  Grote,  '  History  of  Greece,'  vol.  i.  chaps,  ix.  xi. ;  Pausanias  viii.  2  ; 
Plutarch.  Theseus  1. 


9  gods  and 
prodigious 
f  things  is 
Fausanias 
'  the  world 
as  of  old, 
obe  into  a 
h  the  gods, 
ihemselves. 
i  world  has 
.f  belief  in 
ng  firmly  a 
i  for  these 
bruth  alike 
down  that 
has  always 
ound  other 
Grote,  the 
ed  past,  to 
le  or  heroic 
epulsive  to 
ormed  into 

Plutarch, 

hearers  to 

em  that  he 

nay  receive 

fableJihe 
ling  untrue 
L  carried  on 
,  especially 

ous  of  that 
)elief,  where 
>od  or  bad, 
al  narrative 

sanias  viii.  2  ; 


MYTHOLOGY. 


277 

which  it  purports  to  be,  they  do  not  thereupon  wipe  it  our 
from  book  and  memory  as  simply  signifying  nothing,  but 
they  ask  what  original  sense  may  be  in  it,  out  of  what  older 
story  it  may  be  a  second  growth,  or  what  actual  event  or 
current  notion  may  have  suggested  its  development  into 
the  state  in  which  they  find  it  ?  Such  questions,  however, 
prove  almost  as  easy  to  answer  plausibly  as  to  set ;  and 
then,  in  the  endeavour  to  obtain  security  that  these  off-hand 
answers  are  the  true  ones,  it  becomes  evident  that  the  problem 
admits  of  an  indefinite  number  of  apparent  solutions,  not 
only  different  but  incompatible.  This  radical  uncertainty 
in  the  speculative  interpretation  of  myths  is  forcibly  stated 
by  Lord  Bacon,  in  the  preface  to  his  '  Wisdom  of  the 
Ancients.'    *  Neither  am  I  ignorant/  he  says,  '_how  fickle 


W 


and  inconstant  a  thing  fiction  is,  as  being  subject  to  be^'/.i»  '>77t'V'  " 
drawn  and  wrested  any  way,  and  how  great  the  commodity- *^^7~£iY^  o  ^-f  "Jl 
_of  wit  and  discourse  is,  that  is  able  to  apply  things  well,  yet  ;  «-• , 

so  as  never  meant  by  the  first  Riithors.'  The  need  of  such 
a  caution  may  be  judged  of  from  the  very  treatise  to  which 
Bacon  prefaced  it,  for  there  he  is  to  be  seen  plunging  head- 
long into  the  very  pitfall  of  which  he  had  so  discreetly 
warned  his  disciples.  He  undertakes,  after  the  manner  of 
not  a  few  philosophers  before  and  after  him,  to  interpret 
the  classic  myths  of  Greece  as  moral  allegories.  Thus  the 
story  of  Memnon  depicts  the  d'  rtinies  of  rash  young  men 
of  promise ;  while  Perseus  symbol  zes  war,  and  when  of  the 
three  Gorgons  he  attacks  only  the  mortal  one,  this  means 
that  only  practicable  wars  are  to  be  attempted.  [It  would 
not  be  easy  to  bring  out  into  a  stronger  light  the  dI3ieifigce 
between  a  fanciful  application  of  a  myth,  an^^s  analysis 
intdlts  real  elementsL  For  here,  wliere  the  interpreter  be- 
lieved  himself  tobe  reversing  the  process  of  myth-making, 
he  was  in  fact  only  carrying  it  a  stage  further  in  the  old 
direction,  and  out  of  the  suggestion  of  one  train  of  thought 
evolving  another  connected  with  it  by  some  more  or  less 
rgmote  analogy.  Any  of  us  may  practise  this  simple  art, 
each  according  to  his  own  fancy.    If,  for  instance,  political 


i 

n 


^ 


p 


278 


MYTHOLOOY. 


cJ^^^ 


&^ 


d 


economy  happens  for  the  moment  to  lie  uppermost  in  our 
mind,  we  may  with  due  gravity  expound  the  story  of 
Perseus  as  an  allegory  of  trade :  Perseus  himself  is  Labour, 
and  he  finds  Andromeda,  who  is  Profit,  chained  and  ready 
to  be  devoured  by  the  monster  Capital;  he  rescues  her, 
and  carries  her  off  in  triumph.  To  know  anything  of  poetry 
or  of  mysticism  is  to  know  this  reproductive  growth  of  fancy 
as  an  admittedjand  admired  intellectual  process.  [But  when 
it  comes  to  sober  investigation  of  the  processes  of  mythology, 
the  attempt  to  penetrate  to  the  foundation  of  aiLfilti  fijjifiy 
will  scarcely  be  helped  by  burying  it  yet  deeper,  underneath 
a  new  one. 

Nevertheless,  allegory  has  had  a  share  in  the  development 
of  myths  which  no  interpreter  must  overlook.  The  fault  of 
the  rationalizer  lay  in  taking  allegory  beyond  its  proper 
action,  and  applying  it  as  a  universal  solvent  to  reduce^rk 
stories  to  transparent  sense.  The  same  is  true  of  the  other 
great  rationalizing  process,  founded  also,  to  some  extent,  on 
fact.  Nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  real  personages 
often  have  mythic  incidents  tacked  on  to  their  history,  and 
that  they  even  figure  in  tales  of  which  the  very  substance  is 
mythic.  No  one  disbelieves  in  the  existence  of  Solomon 
because  of  his  legendary  adventure  in  the  Valley  of  Apes,  nor 
of  Attila  because  he  figures  in  the  Nibelungen  Lied.  Sir 
Francis  Drake  is  made  not  less  but  more  real  to  us  by  the 
cottage  tales  which  tell  how  he  still  leads  the  Wild  Hunt 
over  Dartmoor,  and  still  rises  to  his  revels  when  they  beat 
at  Buckland  Abbey  the  drum  that  he  carried  round  the 
world.  The  mixture  of  fact  and  fable  in  traditions  of  great 
men  shows  thatlegends  containing  monstrousjancy  loay  yet 
have  a  basis  in  historic  Ja,ct.  But,  on  the  strength  of  this, 
the  mythologisfs^rranged  systematic  methods  of  reducing 


legend  to  history,  and  thereby  contrived  at  once  to  stultify 
the  mythology  they  professed  to  explain,  and  to  ruin  the 
history  they  professed  to  develop.  So  far  as  the  plan 
consisted  in  mere  suppression  of  the  marvellous,  a  notion  of 
its  trustworthiness  may  be  obtained,  as  Mr.  G.  W.  Cox  well 


-)^ 


lost  in  our 
e  story  of 
f  is  Labour, 
and  ready 
escues  her, 
ig  of  poetry 
jtTi  of  fancy 
[  But  when 
mytKology, 
D-oLLiancy 
underneath 

svelopment 
rhe  fault  of 
its  proper 
educe^rk 
f  the  other 
i  extent,  on 
personages 
istory,  and 
ubstance  is 
f  Solomon 
f  Apes,  nor 
Lied.  Sir 
us  by  the 
liVild  Hunt 
they  beat 
round  the 
Qs  of  great 
jyjnay  j'et 


jyjna 
th^ 


■th  01  this, 
■  reducing 
to  stultify 

0  ruin  the 
the  plan 

1  notion  of 
Cox  well 


MYTHOLOGY. 


A^i-^P 


kt^ 


279 


puts  it,  in  rationalizing  Jack  the  Giant-Killer  by  leaving 
out  the  giants.  So  far  as  it  treated  legendary  wonders  as 
being  matter-of-fact  disguised  in  metaphor,  the  mere  naked 
statement  of  the  results  of  the^method  is  to  our  minds  its 
most  cruel  criticism.  Thus  already  in  classic  times  men 
were  declaring  that  Atlas  was  a  gi'eat  astronomer  who  taught 
the  use  of  the  sphere,  and  was  therefore  represented  with 
the  world  resting  on  his  shoulders.  To  such  a  pass  had 
come  the  decay  of  myth  into  commonplace,  that  the  great 
Heaven-god  of  the  Aryan  race,  the  living  personal  Heaven 
himself,  Zeus  the  Almighty,  was  held  to  have  been  a  king 
of  Krete,  and  the  Kretans  could  show  to  wondering  strangers 
his  sepulchre,  with  the  very  name  of  the  great  departed 
inscribed  upon  it.  The  modem  '  Quhemerists '  (so  called 
_from  EuhemeroB  of  Jtfessenia,  a  great  professor  of  the  art 
in  the  time  of  Alexander)  in  part  adopted  the  old  interpre- 
tations, and  sometimes  fairly  left  their  Greek  and  Roman 
teachers  behind  in  the  race  after  prosaic  posaihility.  They 
inform  us  that  Jove  smiting  the  giants  wlth'his  thunderbolts 
was  a  king  repressing  a  sedition ;  Danae's  golden  shower 
was  the  money  with  which  her  guards  were  bribed ;  Pro- 
metheus made  clay  images,  whence  it  was  hyperbolically 
said  that  he  created  man  and  woman  out  of  clay  ;  and  when 
Daidalos  was  related  to  have  made  figures  which  walked, 
this  meant  that  he  improved  the  shapeless  old  statues,  and 
separated  their  legs.  Old  men  still  remember  as  the  guides 
of  educated  opinion  in  their  youth  the  learned  books  in 
which  these  fancies  are  solemnly  put  forth;  some  of  our 
school  manuals  still  go  on  quoting  them  with  respect,  and 
a  few  straggling  writers  carry  on  a  remnant  of  the  once 
famous  system  of  which  the  Abb^  Banier  was  so  distin- 
guished an  exponent.^  But  it  has  of  late  faUen  on  evil  days, 
and  mythologists  in  authority  have  treated  it  in  so  high- 
handed a  fashion  as  to  bring  it  into  general  contempt.  §p 
far  has  the  feeling  against^  the  abuse  of  such-arguiaent  gone, 

'  See  Banier,  'La  Mythologie  et  le8  Fables  expliqu^es  par  I'Histoirc,' 
Paris,  1738  ;  Lemprifere,  '  Classical  Dictionary,'  &c. 


c 


u^ 


/; 


280 


MYTHOLOOY. 


I 

it 

m-. 
■mi. 

r 

»«. 

•r, 

«n 

! 

t 

tt, 


\ 


Kl 


^ 


that  it  is  now  really  desirable  to  warn  students  that  it  has  a 
reasonable  as  well  as  an  unreasonable  side,  and  to  remind 
them  that  some  wild  legends  undoubtedly  do,  and  therefore 
that  many  others  may,  contain  a  kernel  of  historic  truth. 
rXeamed  and  ingenious  as  the  old  systems  of  rationalizing 
myth  have  been,  there  is  no  doubt  that  they  are  in  great 
measure  destined  to  be  thrown  aside/]  It  is  not  that  their 
interpretations  are  proved  impossible,  out  that  mere  possi- 
bility  in  mythological  speculation  is  nqw^een  to  be  such 
a  worthless  commodity,  that  every  investigiator  devoutly 
wishes  there  were  not  such  plenty  of  it.  Qn  assigning 
oiigips  to  myths,  as  in  every  other  scientific  enquiry,  the 
facfis  that   increased  information,  and  the  use  of  more 


Ufj^  *  stringent  canons  of  evidence,  have  raised  far  above  the  old 

6  '  ^^1^ ■ '/)  L\  level  the  standard  of  probability  required  to  prqduce_con- 

T  >v»^^>*^^^^   [1  Yiction.     There  are  many  who  describe  our  own  time  as  an 

unbelieving  time,  but  it  is  by  no  means  sure  that  posterity 

will  accept  the  verdict.     No  doubt  it  is  a  sceptical  and  a 

critical  time,  but  then  scftpticism  and  pvitimHTn  arethe^yery 

t:>i<r .      conditions  for  the  attainment  of  reasonable  belief.    Thus, 

of 


i> 


J- 


f 


t^- 


rj' 


frT~ 


where  the  positive  credence  of  ancient  history  has  been 
affected,  it  is  not  that  the  power  of  receiving  evidence  has 
diminished,  but^  that  the  consciousness  of  ignorance  has 
grown.  We  are  being  trained  to  the  facts  of  .physical 
science,  which  wa  can  tpist  and  test  again,  and  we  feel  it  a 
fall  from  this  high  level  of  proof  when  we  turn  our  minds 
to  the  old  records  which  elude  such  testing,  and  are  even 
admitted  on  all  hands  to  contain  statements  not  to  be 
relied  on.  /Historical  criticismjbecomes  hard  and  exacting, 
even  where  the  chronicle  records  events  not  improbable  in 
themselves ;  and  the  moment  that  the  story  falls  out  of  our 
scheme  of  the  world's  habitual  course,  the  ever  repeated 
question  comes  out  to  meet  it — Which  is  the  more  likely, 
that  so  unusual  an  event  should  have  really  happened,  or 
that  the  record  should  be  misunderstood  or  false  ?  Thus 
we  gladly  seek  for  sources  of  history  in  antiquarian  relics, 
in  undesigned  and  collateral  proofs,  in  documents  not  written 


hski  it  has  a 

to  remind 

cl  thereforo 

ic  truth. 

tionalizing 

e  in  great 

>  that  their 

aero  possi- 

^o  be  such 

r  devoutly 

assigning 

iquLry,  the 

ie  of  more 

>ve  the  old 

oduce  con- 

time  as  an 

t  posterity 

tical  and  a 

re-thajyery 

ief.     Thus, 

has  been 

idence  has 

>rance  has 

^(hysical 

ve  feel  it  a 

our  minds 

d  are  even 

not  to  be 

i  exacting, 

robable  in 

out  of  our 

r  repeated 

lore  likely, 

jpened,  or 

se?    Thus 

:ian  relics, 

Lot  written 


MYTHOLOOT. 


281 


to  be  chronicles.  But  can  any  reader  of  geology  say  wo  are 
too  incredulous  to  believe  wonders,  if  the  evidence  carry 
any  fair  warrant  of  their  truth  1  Was  there  evei'  a  time 
when  lost  history  was  being  reconstructed,  and  existing 
history  rectified,  more  zealously  than  they  are  now  by  a 
whole  army  of  travellers,  excavators,  searchers  of  old 
charters,  and  explorers  of  forgotten  dialects  ?  cThe  very 
myths  that  were  discarded  as  lying  fables,  prove  to  be 
sources  of  history  in  ways  that  their  makers  and  transmittei's 
little  dreamed  of^\  Their  meaning^has  been_  misunderstood, 
but  they  have  a  meaning.  Every  talfi_thft*^'  ^f*^  ^i^L'H  ^"^d 
bft«  ft  lff'^""^"g  ^^^  *-^"  tiiTnpBLilL_b»^""gH  *" :  oven  a  lie,  as 
the  Spanish  prow b  says,  is  a  lady  of  birth  ('  la  mentira  es 
fA*P  hija  de  algo').  /Thus,  as  evidence  of  the  development  of 
thought,  as  records  of  long  past  belief  and  usage,  even  in 
some  measure  as  materials  for  the  history  of  the  nations 
owning  them,  the  old  mvths  have  faiily  taken  their  place 
among  historic  facts ;  and  with  such  the  modern  historian, 
so  able  and  willing  to  pull  down,  is  also  able  and  willing 
to  rebuild/) 

Of  all  things,  what  mvthologic  work  needs  is  breadth  of 
knowledge  and  of  handling.  Interpretations  made  to  suit  a 
narrow  view  reveal  their  weakness  when  exposed  to  a  wide 
one.  See  Herodotus  rationalizing  the  story  of  the  infant 
Cyrus,  exposed  and  suckled  by  a  bitch  ;  he  simply  relates 
that  the  child  was  brought  up  by  a  herdsman's  wife  named 
Spako  (in  Greek  Kyno),  whence  arose  the  fable  that  a  real 
bitch  rescued  and  fed  him.  So  far  so  good — for  a  single 
case.  But  does  the  story  of  Romulus  and  Remus  likewise 
record  a  real  event,  mystified  in  the  self-same  manner  by 
a  pun  on  a  nurse's  name,  which  happened  to  be  a  she- 
beast's  ?  Did  the  Roman  twins  also  really  happen  to  be 
exposed,  and  brought  up  by  a  foster-mother  who  happened 
to  be  called  Lupa  ?  Positively,  the  '  Lemprik-e's  Diction- 
ary' of  our  youth  (I  quote  the  16th  edition  of  1831)  gravely 
gives  this  as  the  origin  of  the  famous  legend.  Yet,  if  we 
look  properly  into  the  matter,  we  find  that  these  two  stories 


X.  ■  . 


\ 


282 


MYTHOLOGY. 


are  but  specimens  of  a  widespread  mythic  group,  itself  only 
a  section  of  that  far  larger  body  of  traditions  in  which 
exposed  infants  are  saved  to  become  national  heroes.  For 
other  examples,  Slavonic  folk-lore  tells  of  the  she-wolf  and 
she-bear  that  suckled  those  superhuman  twins,  Waligora 
the  mountain-roller  and  Wyrwidab  the  oak-uprooter ; 
Germany  has  its  legend  of  Dieterich,  called  Wolfdieterich 
from  his  foster-mother  the  she-wolf;  in  India,  the  episode 
recurs  in  the  tales  of  Satavahana  and  the  lioness,  and  Sing- 
Baba  and  the  tigress  ;  legend  tells  of  Burta-Chino,  the  boy 
who  was  cast  into  a  lake,  and  preserved  by  a  she-wolf  to 
become  founder  of  the  Turkish  kingdom ;  and  even  the 
savage  Yuracards  of  Brazil  tell  of  their  divine  hero  Tiri, 
who  was  suckled  by  a  jaguar.^ 

f  Scientific  myth-interpretation,  on  the  contrary,  is  jistiially 
strengthened  by  such  comparison  of_si5ttilar^casesr]  Where 
the  effect  of  new  knowledge  has  been  to  construct  rather 
than  to  destroy,  it  is  found  thatjthere  are  groups  of  myth- 
interpretations  for  which  wider  and  dei ,  ^  ^r  evidence  makes 
a  wider  and  deeper  foundationrj  The   principles  which 
I  underlie  a  solid  system  of  interpretation  are  really  few  and 
simple.  JThe  treatment  of  similar  myths  from  different 
!  regions,  by  arranging  them  in  large  compared  groups,  makes 
^  I  it  possible  tjLtrace  in  mythology  the  operation  of  imaginative 
^      1  processes  recurring  with  the  evident  regularity  of  ijaental 
law ;  and  thus  stories  of  which  a  single  instance  would  have 
Ibeen  a  mere  isolated  curiosity,  take  their  place   among 
iwell-marked  and  consistent  structures  of  the  human  mind. 
Evidence  likethis  will  again  and  again  drive  us  to  admit" 
that  even  as  '  truth  is  stranger  than  fiction,'  so  mythmay 


be  more  1]nifnmn  than  Tiiatf^ry 

There  lies  within  our  reach, 


moreover,  the  evidence  of 


1  Hanusch,  '  Slav.  Myth.'  p.  323 ;  Grimm,  D.  M.  p.  363  ;  Latham. 
♦Descr.  Eth.'  vol.  ii.  p.  448  ;  I.  J.  Schmidt,  '  Forschungen,'  p.  13;  J.  G. 
Miiller,  'Amer.  Urrelig.'  p.  268.  See  also  Plutarch.  Parallela  xxxvi. ; 
Campbell,  'Highland  Tales,'  vol.  i.  p.  278;  Max  Miiller,  'Chips,'  vol.  ii.  p. 
169  ;  Tylor,  '  Wild  Men  and  Beast-children,'  in  Anthropological  Review, 


axay   X 


ovo. 


itself  only 
I  in  which 
iToes.    For 
le-wolf  and 
,  Waligora 
c-uprooter ; 
olfdieterich 
the  episode 
3,  and  Sing- 
no,  the  boy 
she-wolf  to 
id  even  the 
5  hero  Tiri, 

sisjLCtually 
jesT)  Where 
truct  rather 
ps  of  myth- 
ience  makes 
iples  which 
illy  few  and 
m   different 
oups,  makes 
imaginative 
y  of  ijaental 
would  have 
lace   among 
aman  mind. 
us  to  admil~~ 
,h  may 

evidence  of 

363  ;  Latham. 
,'  p.  13  ;  J.  G. 
allela  xxxvi. ; 
lips,'  vol.  ii.  p. 
ogical  Review, 


MYTHOLOGY. 


283 


hP 


races  both  ancient  and  modern,  who  so_faithfully  represent 
the  state  of  thought  to_which  myth-development  belongs. 
as  still  to  keep  up  both  the  conscioiiaiifiaa  of  meaning  in 
their  old  myths.  nnH  tha  nnst^'ft^npfi  unnfff'fltnfi  habit  of 
creating  new  ones.  Savages  have  been  for  untold  ages,  and 
still  are,  living  in  the  myth-making  stage  of  the  human 
mind.  It  was  through  sheer  ignorance  and  neglect  of  this 
direct  knowledge  how  and  by  what  manner  of  men  myths 
are  really  made,  that  their  simple  philosophy  has  come  to 
be  buried  under  masses  of  commentators'  rubbish.  Though 
never  wholly  lost,  the  secret  of  mythic  interpretation  was 
all  but  forgotten.  Its  recovery  has  been  mainly  due  to 
modern  students  who  have  wi^b^_vast  labour  and  skill 
searched  the  ancient  language,  poetry,  and  folk-lore  ^T'Dur 
owS^-iace,  ifoin  tKeTcottage  tales  collected  by ^he^ brothers 
Grimm  to  the  Kig^Veda^edited  by  Max  Miiller.  Aryan 
language  and  literature  now  open  out  with  wonderful 
range  and  clearness  a  view  of  the  early  stages  of  mythology, 
displaying  those  primitive  germs  of  the  poetry  of  nature, 
jwhich  later  ages  swelled  and  distorted  till_childlike  fancy 
bank  into  8uperstitiou8__nayatery.  It  is  not  proposed  here 
Ko  enquire  specially  into  this  Aryan  mythology,  of  which  so 
many  eminent  students  have  treated,  bujtto^mgare  some  of 
the  most  important  developments  of  mythology^mong  the 
various  races  of  mankind,  especially  in  order  to  determine 
the  general  relation  of  the  myths  of  savage  tribes  to  the 
mytha_Q£clyilized  natidnsT  TEe^argument  does  not  aim  at  a 
general  discussion  of~the  mythology  of  the  world,  numbers 
of  important  topics  being  left  untouched  which  would  have 
to  be  considered  in  a  general  treatise.  [The  topics  chosen 
iare  mostly  such  as  are  fitted,  by  the  strictness  of  evidence 
and  argument  applying  to  them,  to  make  a  sound  basis  for 
the  treatment  of  myth  as  bearing  on  the  general  ^hno- 
logical  problem  of  the  development  of  civilization^  The 
general  thesis  maintained  is  that  Myth  arose  in  the  savage 
condition  prevalent  in  remote  ages  among  the  whole  human 
race,  that  it  remains  comparatively  unchanged  among  the 


\  } 


\  >i 


I 

tl. 


% 


284  MYTHOLOGY. 

modern  rude  tribes  who  have  departed  least  from  these 
primitive  conditions,  while  even  hj^her,  and  later  grades  of 
civiHzation,  partly  by  retaining  itsuactual  principles,  and 
partly  by  carrying  on  its  inherited  results  in  the  formjof 
ancesfcral  traditionLhave  continued  it  not  merely  in  tolera- 
tion but  in  honourj 

To  the  human  intellect  in  it  j  early  childlike  state  may  be 
assigned  the_origin  and  first  development  of  myth.     It  is 
true  that  learned  critics,  taking  up  the  study  of  mythology 
at  the  wrong  end,  have  almost  habitually  failed  to  appre- 
1  ciate  its   childlike  ideas,  conventionalized  in  poetry  or 
1  disguised  as  chronicle.      Yet  the   niore_we   compare  the 
mythic  fancies  of  difierent  nations,  in  order  to  discern  the 
(I  I     (T*^    comnaQiL-thoughts  which  underlie  their  resemblances,  the 
\\v^  more  ready  we  shall  be  to  admit  that  in  our  childhood  we 

^  dwelt  at  the  very  gates  of  the  realm  of  myth.    In  mythology, 

the  child  is,  in  a  deeper  sense  than  we  are  apt  to  use  the 
phrase  in,  father  of  the  man.  Thus,  when  in  surveying 
the  quaint  fancies  and  wild  legends  of  the  lower  tribes,  we 
find  the  mythology  of  the  world  at  once  in  its  most  distinct 
and  most  rudimentary  form,  we  may  here  again  claim  the 
savage  as  a  represestatiie^ of  the  childhoad^f  the  human 
1  race.  /Here  Ethnology  and  Comparative  Mythology  go 
hand  in  hand,  and  the  development  of  Myth  forms  a  con- 
sistent part  of  the  development  of  Cultured  If  savage 
races,  as  the  nearest  modern  representatives  of  primaeval 
culture,  show  in  the  most  distinct  and  unchanged  state 
the  rudimentary  mythic  conceptions  thence  to  be  traced 
onward  in  the  course  of  civilization,  then  it  is  reasonable 
for  students  to  begin,  so  far  as  may  be,  at  the  beginning. 
Savage  mythology  may  be  taken  as  a  basis,  and  then  the 
myths  of  more  civilized  races  may  be  displayed  as  com- 
positions sprung  from  like  origin,  though  more  advanced 
inart.  This  mode  of  treatment  proves  satisfactory  through 
1  almost  all  the  branches  of  the  enquiry,  and  eminently  so  in 
investigating  those  most   beautiful  of  poetic  fictions,  to 

I  buu  Libit;  VI  x^aLUrti-iuybus. 


^i^^P 


0^ 


lUtt/^ 


K^ 


MYTHOLO&Y. 


285 


from  these 
er  grades  of 
ticiples,  and 
the  form_of 
y  in  tolera- 

itato  may  be 
nyth.     It  is 
f  mythology 
sd  to  appre- 
1  poetry  or 
jompare  the 
discern  the 
iblances,  the 
hildhood  we 
1  mythology, 
»t  to  use  the 
a   surveying 
er  tribes,  we 
nost  distinct 
in  claim  the 
f  the  human 
ythology  go 
■orms  a  con- 
n   If  savage 
of  primaeval 
langed  state 

0  be  traced 

1  reasonable 
e  beginning, 
md  then  the 
yed  as  corn- 
re  advanced 
ory  through 
Lnently  so  in 
i  fictions,  to 


1^1 


— First  and  foremost  among  the  causes  which  transfigure 
into  myths  the  facts  of  daily  experience,  is  the  belief  in  the 
animation  of  all  nature,  rising  at  its  highest  pitch  to  per- 
sonification. This,  no  occasional  or  hypothetical  action  of 
the  mind,  is  inextricably  bound  in  with  that  primitive 
mental  state  where  man  recognizesjn  every  detail  of  his 
world  the  operation  of  personal  life  and  will.  This  doctrine 
of  Aninusmj  willHbe  ^onsI3ered"el8ewhere  as,  affecting 
philosophy  andreligion,  but  here  we  have  only  to  do  witKlts 
bearing  on  mythology.  To  the  lower  tribes  of  man,  sun 
and  stars,  trees   and  rivers,  winds  and  clouds,   become 


I 


grsonal  animate  creatures,  leading  lives  conformed  to 
human  or'animaTanalogies,  and  performing  their  special 
functions  in  the  universe  with  the  aid  of  limbs  like  beasts, 
or  of  artificial  instruments  like  men ;  or  what  men's  eyes 
behold  is  but  the  instrument  to  be  used  or  the  material  to 
be  jhaped,  while  behind  it  there  stands  some  prodigious  but 
yet  half-human  creature,  who  grasps  it  with  his  Jiangs  or 
blows  it  with  his  breach.  (The  basis  on  which  such  ideas 
as  tnese  are  built  is  not  to  be  narrowed  down  to  poetic 
fancy  and  transformed  metaphor.  (^They  rest  upon  a  broad 
philosophy  of  nature,  early  and  crude  indeed,  but  thoughtful, 
\  consistent,  and  quite  really^ and  seriously  meant. 

Let  us  put  this  doctrine  of  universal  vitality  to  a  test  of 
direct  evidence,  lest  readers  new  to  the  subject  should 
suppose  it  a  modern  philosophical  fiction,  or  think  that  if 
the  lower  races  really  express  such  a  notion,  they  may  do 
so  only  as  a  poetical  way  of  talking.  Even  in  civilized 
countries,  it   makes  its   appearance  as  the  child's   early 


theory  of  the  outer  world,  nor  can  weTaiTto  see  how  this 
comes  to  pass.  TEiefirst  beings  that  children  learn  to  under- 
stand something  of  are  human  beings,  and  especially  their 
own  selves  ;  and  the  first  explanation  of  all  events  will  be 
the  human  explanation,  as  though  chairs  and  sticks  and 
wooden  horses  were  actuated  by  the  same  sort  of  personal 
will  as  nurses  and  children  and  kittens.  Thus  infants  take 
their  first  step  in  mythology  by  contriving,  like  Cosette 


':1 

a 
(„•■■ 

1.  ■,' 


286 


MYTHOLOGY. 


P'v': 


with  her  doll, '  se  figurer  que  quelque  chose  est  quelqu'un ; ' 
and  the  way  in  which  this  childlike  theory  has  to  be 
unlearnt  in  the  course  of  education  shows  how  primitive  it 
is.  Even  among  full-grown  civilized  Europeans,  as  Mr. 
Grote  appositely  remarks,  '  The  force  of  momentary 
passion  will  often  suffice  to  supersede  the  acquired  habit, 
and  even  an  intelligent  man  may  be  impelled  in  a  moment 
of  agonizing  pain  to  kick  or  beat  the  lifeless  object  from 
which  he  has  suffered.'  In  such  matters  the  savage  mind 
well  represents  the  childish  stage.  The  wild  native  of 
Brazil  would  bite  the  stone  he  stumbled  over,  or  the  arrow 
that  had  wounded  him.  Such  a  mental  condition  may  be 
traced  along  the  course  of  history,  not  merely  in  impulsive 
habit,  but  in  formally  enacted  law.  The  rude  Kukis  of 
Southern  Asia  were  very  scrupulous  in  carrying  out  their 
simple  law  of  vengeance,  life  for  life ;  if  a  tiger  killed  a 
Kuki,  his  family  were  in  disgrace  till  they  had  retaliated  by 
killing  and  eating  this  tiger,  or  another ;  but  further,  if  a 
man  was  killed  by  a  fall  from  a  tree,  his  relatives  would 
take  their  revenge  by  cutting  the  tree  down,  and  scattering 
it  in  chips.^  A  modern  king  of  Cochin-China,  when  one  of 
his  ships  sailed  badly,  used  to  put  it  in  the  pillory  as  he 
would  any  other  criminal.'*  In  classical  times,  the  stories 
of  Xerxes  flogging  the  Hellespont  and  Cyrus  draining  the 
Gyndes  occur  as  cases  in  point,  but  one  of  the  regular 
Athenian  legal  proceedings  is  a  yet  more  striking  relic. 
A  court  of  justice  was  held  at  the  Prytaneum,  to  try  any 
inanimate  object,  such  as  an  axe  or  a  piece  of  wood  or 
stone,  which  had  caused  the  death  of  anyone  without 
proved  human  agency,  and  this  wood  or  stone,  if  con- 
demned, was  in  solemn  form  cast  beyond  the  border.^ 
The  spii'it  of  this  remarkable  procedure  reappears  in  the 
old  English  law  (repealed  in  the  present  reign),  whereby  not 


*  Macrae  in  '  As.  Res.'  vol.  vii.  p.  189. 

*  Bastian,  '  Oeatl.  Asien,'  vol.  i.  p.  51. 

'  Grote,  vol.  iii,  p.  104 ;  vol.  v.  p.  22 ;  Herodot.  i.  189  ;  vii.  84 ;  Porphyr. 
de  Abatinentia,  ii.  30  ;  Pausan.  i.  28  ;  Pollux,  'Onomasticon.' 


wm- 


uelqu'un ; ' 
has  to  be 
•rimitive  it 
IS,  as  Mr. 
Qomentary 
ired  habit, 
a  moment 
ibject  from 
vage  mind 
native  of 
the  arrow 
on  may  be 
impulsive 
!  Kukis  of 
f  out  their 
3r  killed  a 
taliated  by 
irther,  if  a 
ves  would 
scattering 
hen  one  of 
llory  as  he 
the  stories 
aining  the 
le  regular 
cing  relic, 
to  try  any 
f  wood  or 
without 
e,  if  con- 
border.^ 
ars  in  the 
lereby  not 


J4;  Porphyr. 


MYTHOLOGY. 


287 


only  a  beast  that  kills  a  man,  but  a  cart-wheel  that  runs  over 
him,  or  a  tree  that  falls  on  him  and  kills  him,  is  deodaqd.  or 
given^to^God,  i.e.  forfeited  and  sold  for  the  joor ;  asBrac- 
ton  says, '  Omnia  quae  movent  ad  mortem  sunt  Deodanda.' 
Dr.  Reid  comments  on  this  law,  declaring  that  its  intention 
was  not  to  punish  the  ox  or  the  cart  as  criminal,  but  '  to 
inspire  the  people  with  a  sacred  regard  to  the  life  of  man.'  ^ 
But  his  argument  rather  serves  to  show  the  worthlessnesa 
of  off-hand  speculations  on  the  origin  of  law,  like  his  own 
in  this  matter,  unaided  by  the  indispensable  evidence  of 
history  and  ethnography.  An  example  from  modern  folk- 
lore shows  still  at  its  utmost  stretch  this  primitive  fancy 
that  inert  things  are  alive  and  conscious.  The  pathetic 
custom  of  'telling  the  bees'  when  the  master  or  mistress  r 
of  a  house  dies,  is  not  unknown  in  our  own  country.  But 
in  Germany  the  idea  is  more  fully  worked  out ;  and  not 
only  is  the  sad  message  given  to  every  bee-hive  in  the 
garden  and  every  beast  in  the  stall,  but  every  sack  of  com 
must  be  touched  and  everything  in  the  house  shaken,  that 
they  may  know  the  master  is  gone.'^  /\  tJ  i  'l^  l^  /  H, 

It  will  be  seen  presently  how  Animism,  the  doctrine  of 
spirituaLbgings,  at  once  develops  with  and  reacts  upon 
mythic  personification,  in  that  early  state  of  the  human 
mind  which  gives  consistent  individual  life  to  phenomena 
that  our  utmost  stretch  of  fancy  only  avails  to  personify  in 
consciouajpt^^^^phnr.  An  idea  of  pervading  life  and  will  in 
nature  far  outside  modern  limits,  a  belief  in  personal  souls 
animating  even  what  we  call  inanimate  bodies,  a  theory  of 
transmigration  of  souls  as  well  in  life  as  after  death,  a  sense 
of  crowds  of  spiritual  beings  sometimes  flitting  through  the 
air,  but  sometimes  also  inhabiting  trees  and  rocks  and 
waterfalls,  and  so  lending  their  own  personality  to  such 
material  objects — all  these  thoughts  work  in  mythology 
with  such  manifold  coincidence,  as  to  make  it  hard  indeed 
to  unravel  their  separate  action.^ 

*  Beid,  '  Essays,'  vol.  iii.  p.  113. 

*  Wuttke,  '  Yolksaberglaube,'  p.  210.  '  See  chap.  xi. 


'^ 


i  \ 


ii 


\ 


>;  «    • 


1  i  ,i 


288 


MYTHOLOGY. 


!"     •'>) 


c 

m 

k     1 


Such  animistic  origin  of  nature-myths  shows  out  very 
clearly  in  the  great  cosmivj  group  of  Sun,  Moon,  and  Stars. 
In  early  philosophy  throughout  the  world,  the  Sun  and 
Moon  are  alive  and  as  it  were  human  in  their  nature. 
Usually  contrasted  as  male  and  female,  they  nevertheless 
differ  in  the  sex  assigned  to  each,  as  well  as  in  their 
relations  to  one  another.  Among  the  Mbocobis  of  South 
America,  the  Moon  is  a  man  and  the  Sun  his  wife,  and  the 
story  is  told  how  she  once  fell  down  and  an  Indian  put  her 
up  again,  but  she  fell  a  second  time  and  set  the  forest 
blazing  in  a  deluge  of  fire.^  To  display  the  opposite  of  this 
idea,  and  at  the  same  time  to  illustrate  the  vivid  fancy 
with  which  savages  can  personify  the  heavenly  bodies,  we 
may  read  the  following  discussion  concerning  eclipses, 
between  certain  Algonquin  Indians  and  one  of  the  early 
Jesuit  missionaries  to  Canada  in  the  17th  century.  Father 
Le  Jeune : — '  Je  leur  ay  demand^  d'oti  venoit  TEclipse  de 
Lune  et  de  Soleil ;  ils  m'ont  respondu  que  la  Lune  s'dclip- 
soit  ou  paroissoit  noire,  k  cause  qu'elle  tenoit  son  fils  entre 
ses  bras,  qui  empeschoit  que  Ton  ne  vist  sa  clart^.  Si  la 
Lune  a  un  fils,  elle  est  maride,  ou  I'a  4t6,  leur  dis-je.  Ouy 
dea,  me  dirent-ils,  le  Soleil  est  son  mary,  qui  marche  tout 
le  jour,  et  elle  toute  la  nuict ;  et  s'il  s'dclipse,  ou  s'il 
s'obscurcit,  c'est  qu'il  prend  aussi  par  fois  le  fils  qu'il  a  eu 
de  la  Lune  entre  ses  bras.  Oviy,  mais  ny  la  Lune  ny  le 
Soleil  n'ont  point  de  bras,  leur  disois-je.  Tu  n'as  point 
d'esprit ;  ils  tiennent  tousiours  leurs  arcs  band^s  deuant 
eux,  voil^  pourquoy  leurs  bras  ne  paroissent  point.  Et  sur 
qui  veulent-ils  tirer?  Hd  qu'en  scauons  nous?'^  A 
mythologically  important  legend  of  the  same  race,  the 
Ottawa  story  of  Iosco,  describes  Sun  and  Moon  as  brother 
and  sister.  Two  Indians,  it  is  said,  sprang  through  a 
chasm  in  the  sky,  and  found  themselves  in  a  pleasant 


lit 


•  D'Orbigny,  'L'Homme  Americain,'  vol.  ii.  p.  102.  See  also  De  la 
Borde,  '  Caraibes,'  p.  525. 

"  Le  Jeune  in  *  Belations  des  J^uites  dans  la  Nouvelle  France,'  1634, 
p.  26.    See  Charlevoix,  '  Nouvelle  France,'  vol.  ii.  p.  170. 


Kaw 


MYTHOLOGY. 


289 


9  out  very 
and  Stars. 
}  Sun  and 
eir  nature, 
levertheless 
is  in  their 
s  of  South 
ife,  and  the 
ian  put  her 
the  forest 
osite  of  this 
dvid  fancy 
•  bodies,  we 
ig  eclipses, 
f  the  early 
ury,  Father 
I'Eclipse  de 
une  s'^clip- 
an  fils  entre 
art^.     Si  la 
lis-je.    OUy 
narche  tout 
ipse,  ou  s'il 
s  qu'il  a  eu 
Lune  ny  le 
n'as  point 
id^s  deuant 
int.     Et  sur 
lOus?'"      a 
e  race,  the 
as  brother 
through   a 
a  pleasant 

lee  also  De  la 
France,"  1634, 


moonlit  land;  there  they  saw  the  Moon  approaching  as 
from  behind  a  hill,  they  knew  her  at  the  first  sight,  she  was 
an  aged  woman  with  white  face  and  plea&ing  air  ;  speaking 
kindly  to  them,  she  led  them  to  her  brother  the  Sun,  and 
he  carried  them  with  him  in  his  course  and  sent  them  home 
with  promises  of  happy  life.^  As  the  Egjrptian  Osiris  and 
Isis  were  at  once  brother  and  sister,  and  husband  and  wife,  so 
it  was  with  the  Peruvian  Sun  and  Moon,  Ynti  and  Quilla, 
father  and  mother  of  the  Incas,  whose  sister-marriage  thus 
had  in  their  religion  at  once  a  meaning  and  a  justification.^ 
The  myths  of  other  countries,  where  such  relations  of  sex 
may  not  appear,  carry  on  the  same  lifelike  personification  in 
telling  the  ever-reiterated,  never  tedious  tale  of  day  and 
night.  Thus  to  the  Mexicans  it  was  an  ancient  hero  who, 
when  the  old  sun  was  burnt  out,  and  had  left  the  world  in 
darkness,  sprang  into  a  huge  fire,  descended  into  the  shades 
below,  and  arose  deified  and  glorious  in  the  east  as  Tonatiuh 
the  Sun.  After  him  there  leapt  in  another  hero,  but  now 
the  fire  had  grown  dim,  and  he  arose  only  in  milder  radiance 
as  Metztli  the  Moon.  ^ 

If  it  be  objected  that  all  this  may  be  mere  expressive 
form  of  speech,  like  a  modern  poet's  fanciful  metaphor, 
there  is  evidence  which  no  such  objection  can  stand  against. 
When  the  Aleutians  thought  that  if  any  one  gave  offence 
to  the  moon,  he  would  fling  down  stones  on  the  offender 
and  kill  him,*  or  when  the  moon  came  down  to  an  Indian 
squaw,  appearing  in  the  form  of  a  beautiful  woman  with  a 
child  in  her  arms,  and  demanding  an  offering  of  tobacco 
and  fur  robes,^  what  conceptions  of  personal  life  could  be 

*  Schoolcraft,  *  Algic  Researches,'  vol.  ii.  p.  54  ;  compare  'Tanner's 
Narrative,'  p.  317  ;  see  also  '  Prose  Edda,'  i.  11 ;  *  Early  Hist,  of  Mankind,' 
p.  327. 

■^  Prescott,  'Peru,'  vol.  i.  p.  86  ;  Garcilaso  de  la  Vega,  *Comm.  Beal.'  i. 
c.  15,  iii.  c.  21. 

*  Torquemada,  '  Monarquia  Indiana,'  vi.  42  ;  Clavigero,  vol.  ii.  p.  9  ; 
Sahagun  in  Kingsborough,  *  Antiquities  of  Mexico.' 

*  Bastian,  '  Menach,'  vol.  ii.  p.  59. 

'  Le  Jeune,  in  'Relations  des  .Tesuites  dans  la  Nouvelle  France,'  1639, 
p.  88. 

VOL.  I.  U 


i   1 


I  ;i 


290 


MYTHOLOay. 


»l'  'M 


HOk- 


more  distinct  than  these?  When  the  Apache  Indian 
pointed  to  the  sky  and  asked  the  white  man,  'Do  you 
not  believe  that  Qod,  this  Sun  (que  Dios,  este  Sol)  sees 
what  we  do  and  punishes  us  when  it  is  evil?'  it  is  im- 
possible to  say  that  this  savage  was  talking  in  rhetorical 
simile.^  There  was  something  in  the  Homeric  contemplation 
of  the  living  personal  HSlios,  that  was  more  and  deeper 
than  metaphor.  Even  in  far  later  ages,  we  may  read  of  the 
outcry  that  arose  in  Greece  against  the  astronomers,  those 
blasphemous  materialists  who  denied,  not  the  divinity  only, 
but  the  very  personality  of  the  sun,  and  declared  him  a  huge 
hot  ball.  Later  again,  how  vividly  Tacitus  brings  to  view 
the  old  personification  dying  into  simile  among  the 
Romans,  in  contrast  with  its  still  enduring  religious  vigour 
among  the  German  nations,  in  the  record  of  Boiocalcus 
pleading  before  the  Roman  legate  that  his  tribe  should 
not  be  driven  from  their  lands.  Looking  toward  the  sun, 
and  calling  on  the  other  heavenly  bodies  as  though,  says 
the  historian,  they  had  been  there  present,  the  German 
chief  demanded  of  them  if  it  were  their  will  to  look  down 
upon  a  vacant  soil  ?  (Solem  deinde  respiciens,  et  caetera 
sidera  vocans,  quasi  coram  interrogabat,  vellentne  contueri 
inane  solum  ?)  ^ 

So  it  is  with  the  stars.  Savage  mythology  contains 
many  a  story  of  them,  agreeing  through  all  other  difierence 
in  attributing  to  them  animate  life.  They  are  not  merely 
talked  of  in  fancied  personality,  but  personal  action  is  attri- 
buted to  them,  or  they  are  even  declared  once  to  have  lived 
on  earth.  The  natives  of  Australia  not  only  say  the  stars 
in  Orion's  belt  and  scabbard  are  young  men  dancing  a 
corroboree ;  they  declare  that  Jupiter,  whom  they  call 
'  Foot  of  Day '  (Ginabong-Bearp),  was  a  chief  among  the 
Old  Spirits,  that  ancient  race  who  were  translated  to  heaven 
before  man  came  on  earth.^  The  Esquimaux  did  not  stop 
short  at  calling  the  stars  of  Orion's  belt  the  Lost  Ones,  and 

*  Froebel,  'Central  America,'  p.  490.  "  Tac.  Ann.  xiii.  56. 

»  Stanbridge,  in  'Tr.  Eth.  Soc'  vol.  i.  p.  301. 


"iiil!: 


,che   Indian 
a,  'Do  you 
te  Sol)  sees 
1'  it  is  im- 
n  rhetorical 
ntemplation 
and  deeper 
Y  read  of  the 
omerB,  those 
ivinity  only, 
1  him  a  huge 
ings  to  view 
among    the 
gious  vigour 
■  Boiocalcus 
;ribe  should 
ard  the  sun, 
though,  says 
the  German 
)  look  down 
IS,  et  caetera 
tne  contueri 

)gy  contains 
er  difference 
)  not  merely 
jtion  is  attri- 
io  have  lived 
ay  the  stars 
dancing  a 
they  call 
f  among  the 
led  to  heaven 
did  not  stop 
st  Ones,  and 

in.  xiii.  56. 


MYTHOLOaY. 


201 


n 


telling  a  tale  of  their  being  seal-hunters  who  missed  their 
way  home  ;  but  they  distinctly  held  that  the  stars  were  in 
old  times  men  and  animals,  befpre  they  went  up  into  the 
sky.^  So  the  North  American  Indians  had  more  than 
superficial  meaning  in  calling  the  Pleiades  the  Dancers,  and 
the  morning-star  the  Day-bringer ;  for  among  them  stories 
are  told  like  that  of  the  lowas,  of  the  star  that  an  Indian 
had  long  gazed  upon  in  childhood,  and  who  came  down  and 
talked  with  him  when  he  was  once  out  hunting,  weary  and 
luckless,  and  led  him  to  a  place  where  there  was  much 
game.^  The  Kasia  of  Bengal  declare  that  the  stars  were  once 
men :  they  climbed  to  the  top  of  a  tree  (of  course  the  great 
heaven-tree  of  the  mythology  of  so  many  lands),  but  others 
below  cut  the  trunk  and  left  them  up  there  in  the  branches.^ 
With  such  savage  conceptions  as  guides,  the  original  mean- 
ing in  the  familiar  classic  personification  of  stars  can 
scarcely  be  doubted.  The  explicit  doctrine  of  the  anima- 
tion of  stars  is  to  be  traced  thiough  past  centuries,  and 
down  to  our  own.  Origen  declares  that  the  stars  are 
animate  and  rational,  moved  with  such  order  and  reason  as 
it  would  be  absurd  to  say  irrational  creatures  could  fulfil. 
Pamphilius,  in  his  apology  for  this  Father,  lays  it  down 
that  whereas  some  have  held  the  luminaries  of  heaven  to  be 
animate  and  rational  creatures,  while  others  have  held  them 
mere  spiritless  and  senseless  bodies,  no  one  may  call 
another  a  heretic  for  holding  either  view,  for  there  is  no 
open  tradition  on  the  subject,  and  even  ecclesiastics  have 
thought  diversely  of  it.*  It  is  enough  to  mention  here  the 
well-known  mediseval  doctrine  of  star-souls  and  stai'-angels, 
so  intimately  mixed  up  with  the  delusions  of  astrology.  In 
our  own  time  the  theory  of  the  animating  souls  of  stars 
finds  still  here  and  there  an  advocate,  and  De  Maistre, 

'  Cranz, '  GrOnland,'  p.  295  ;  Hayes,  '  Arctic  Boat  Journey,'  p.  254. 
'  Schoolcraft,  '  Indian  Tribes,'  part  iii.  p.  276  ;  see  also  De  la  Borde, 
'  Caraibes,'  p.  525. 
'  H.  Yule  in  '  Journ.  As.  Soc.  Bengal,'  vol.  xiii.  (1844),  p.  628. 
•  Origen.  de  Principiis,  i.  7,  3  ;  Paraphil.  Apolog.  pro  Origine,  ix.  84. 

u  a 


/ 


\ 


I: 


y 


'  '■,( 


292 


MYTHOLOaV. 


prince  and  leader  of  reactionary  philosophers,  maintains 
against  modern  astronomers  the  ancient  doctrine  of  per- 
sonal will  in  astronomic  motion,  and  even  the  theory  of 
animated  planets.^ 

Poetry  has  so  far  kept  alive  in  our  minds  the  old  anima- 
tive  theory  of  nature,  that  it  is  no  great  effort  to  us  to  fancy 
the  waterspout  a  huge  giant  or  sea-monster,  and  to  depict 
in  what  we  call  appropriate  metaphor  its  march  across  the 
fields  of  ocean.  But  where  such  forms  of  speech  are  current 
among  less  educated  races,  they  are  underlaid  by  a  distinct 
prosaic  meaning  of  fact.  Thus  the  waterspouts  which  the 
Japanese  see  so  often  off  their  coasts  are  to  them  long-tailed 
dragons,  *  flying  up  into  the  air  with  a  swift  and  violent 
motion,'  wherefore  they  call  them  •  tatsmaki,'  '  spouting 
dragons.' 2  Waterspouts  are  believed  by  some  Chinese  to 
be  occasioned  by  the  ascent  and  descent  of  the  dragon ; 
although  the  monster  is  never  seen  head  and  tail  at  once  for 
clouds,  fishermen  and  sea-side  folk  catch  occasional  glimpses 
of  him  ascending  from  the  water  and  descending  to  it.* 
In  the  mediaeval  Chronicle  of  John  of  Bromton  there  is 
mentioned  a  wonder  which  happens  about  once  a  month  in 
the  Gulf  of  Satalia,  on  the  Pamphylian  coast.  A  great 
black  dragon  seems  to  come  in  the  clouds,  letting  down  his 
head  into  the  waves,  while  his  tail  seems  fixed  to  the  sky, 
and  this  dragon  draws  up  the  waves  to  him  with  such  avidity 
that  even  a  laden  ship  would  be  taken  up  on  high,  so  that  to 
avoid  this  danger  the  crews  ought  to  shout  and  beat  boards 
to  di'ive  the  dragon  off.  However,  concludes  the  chronicler, 
some  indeed  say  that  this  is  not  a  dragon,  but  the  sun  draw- 
ing up  the  water,  which  seems  more  true.*  The  Moslems  still 
account  for  waterspouts  as  caused  by  gigantic  demons,  such 
as  that  one  described  in  the  'Arabian  Nights:' — 'The 


*  De  Maistre,  '  Soirees  de  Saint- P<5tersbourg,'  vol.  ii.  p.  210,  see  184. 

*  Kaempfer,  'Japan,'  in  Pinkerton,  vol.  vii.  p.  684. 

'  Doolittle,  '  Chinese,'  vol.  ii.  p.  265  ;  see  Ward,  '  Hindoos,'  vol.  i.  p.  140 
(Indra's  elephants  drinking). 

*  Chron.  Job.  Bromton,  in  '  Hist.  Angl.  Scriptores,'  x.  Ric.  I.  p.  1216. 


Wr 


MYTHOLOGY. 


293 


,  maintains 
ine  of  per- 
)  theory  of 

old  anima- 
us  to  fancy 
id  to  depict 
I  across  the 
I  are  current 
y  a  distinct 
3  which  the 
I  long-tailed 
and  violent 
,'  'spouting 

Chinese  to 
he  dragon; 
1  at  once  for 
lal  glimpses 
iing  to  it.'' 
ion  there  is 

a  month  in 
t.  A  great 
ig  down  his 

to  the  sky, 
mch  avidity 
h,  so  that  to 
beat  boards 
B  chronicler, 
le  sun  draw- 
loslems  still 
emons,  such 
Its:'— 'The 

0,  see  184. 
•s,'  vol.  i.  p.  140 
B.  I.  p.  1216. 


sea  became  troubled  before  them,  and  there  arose  from  it  a 
black  pillar,  ascending  towards  the  sky,  and  approaching  the 
meadow  .  .  .  and  behold  it  was  a  Jinnee,  of  gigantic 
stature.'  ^  The  difficulty  in  interpreting  language  like  this 
is  to  know  how  far  it  is  seriously  and  how  far  fancifully 
meant.  But  this  doubt  in  no  way  goes  against  its  original 
animistic  meaning,  of  which  there  can  be  no  question  in  the 
following  story  of  a  '  great  sea-serpent  *  current  among  a 
barbarous  East  African  tribe.  A  chief  of  the  Wanika  told 
Dr.  Krapf  of  a  great  sei-pent  which  is  sometimes  seen  out  at 
sea,  reaching  from  the  sea  to  the  sky,  and  appearing 
especially  during  heavy  rain.  *I  told  them,'  says  the 
missionary, '  that  this  was  no  serpent,  but  a  waterspout.'  ^ 
Out  of  the  similar  phenomenon  on  land  there  has  arisen  a 
similar  group  of  myths.  The  Moslem  fancies  the  whirling 
sand-pillar  of  the  desert  to  be  caused  by  the  flight  of  an  evil 
jinn,  and  the  East  African  simply  calls  it  a  demon  (p'hepo). 
To  traveller  after  traveller  who  gazes  on  these  monstrous 
shapes  gliding  majestically  across  the  desert,  the  thought 
occurs  that  the  well-remembered '  Arabian  Nights' '  descrip- 
tions rest  upon  personifications  of  the  sand-pillars  them- 
selves, as  the  gigantic  demons  into  which  fancy  can  even 
now  so  naturaUy  shape  them.^ 

Rude  and  distant  tribes  agree  in  the  conception  of  the 
Rainbow  as  a  living  monster.  New  Zealand  myth,  describ- 
ing the  battle  of  the  Tempest  against  the  Forest,  tells  how 
the  Rainbow  arose  and  placed  his  mouth  close  to  Tane-ma- 
huta,  the  Father  of  Trees,  and  continued  to  assault  him  till 
his  trunk  was  snapt  in  two,  and  his  broken  branches  strewed 
the  ground.*  It  is  not  only  in  mere  nature-myth  like  this, 
but  in  actual  awe-struck  belief  and  terror,  that  the  idea  of  the 

•  Lane,  'Thousand  and  One  N,'  toI.  i.  p,  30,  7. 
"  Krapf, 'Travels,' p.  198. 

'  Lane,  ihid.  pp.  80,  42  ;  Burton,  '  El  Medinah  and  Meccah,'  vol.  ii.  p.  69 ; 
'  Lake  Regions,'  vol.  i.  p.  297  ;  J.  D.  Hooker, '  Himalayan  Journals,'  vol.  i. 
p.  79  ;  Tylor,  '  Mexico,"  p.  80  ;  Tyerman  and  Bennet,  vol.  ii.  p.  862.  [Hindu 
pi9&cha  =  demon,  whirlwind.] 

*  Taylor,  '  New  Zealand,'  p.  121. 


I 

11 


S94 


MYTHOLOQY. 


I] 

I' 


r 

r.. 
I 

I 


i: 


livo  Rainbow  is  worked  out.  The  Karens  of  Birma  say  it  is 
a  spirit  or  demon.  'The  Rainbow  can  devour  men.  .  .  . 
When  it  devours  a  person,  he  dies  a  sudden  or  violent 
death.  All  persons  that  die  badly,  by  falls,  by  drowning, 
"^r  by  wild  beasts,  die  because  the  Rainbow  has  devoured 
their  ka-la,  or  spirit.  On  devouring  persons  it  becomes 
thirsty  and  comes  down  to  drink,  when  it  is  seen  in  tht.  sky 
drinking  water.  Therefore  when  people  see  fh*  RrinI  ow, 
they  say,  "The  Rainbow  has  come  to  drin^v  wdtor.  liook 
out,  some  one  or  other  will  die  violently  uy  i  a  '^vvil  death." 
If  children  are  playing,  their  parents  v,  1 1 !  lay  to  them,  "  The 
Rainbow  has  come  down  to  drink.  T  iv  uo  more,  lest  some 
accident  should  happen  to  yon."  And  after  tl.3  Rainbow 
has  been  seen,  if  any  fatal  accident  happens  to  anyone,  it  is 
said  the  Rainbow  has  devoured  him.'^  The  Zulu  ideas 
correspond  in  a  curious  way  with  these.  The  Rainbow  lives 
with  a  snake,  that  is,  where  it  is  there  is  also  a  snake ;  or 
it  is  like  a  sheep,  and  dwells  in  a  pool.  When  it  touches 
the  earth,  it  is  drinking  at  a  pool.  Men  are  afraid  to 
wash  in  a  large  pool ;  they  say  there  is  a  Rainbow  in  it,  and 
ii  a  man  goes  in,  it  catches  and  eats  him.  The  Rainbow, 
coning  out  of  a  river  or  pool  and  resting  on  the  ground, 
poisons  men  whom  it  meets,  affecting  them  with  eruptions. 
Men  say, '  The  Rainbow  is  disease.  If  it  rests  on  a  man, 
something  will  happen  to  him.'  ^  Lastly  in  Dahome,  Danh 
the  Heavenly  Snake,  which  makes  the  Fopo  beads  and 
confers  wealth  on  man,  is  the  Rainbow.^ 

To  the  theory  of  Animism  belong  those  endless  tales 
which  all  nations  tell  of  the  presiding  genii  of  nature,  the 
spirits  of  cliffs,  wel..  Art!  ^.ifRlls,  volcanos,  the  elvs  and  wood 
nymphs  seen  at  ti"  'S  '  ..nan  eye  nen  wandering  by 
moonlight  or  asseiabioa  at  liieir  fairy  festivals.  Such  beings 
may  personify  the  natural  objects  they  belong  to,  as  when, 
in  a  North  American  tale,  the  guardian  spirit  of  waterfalls 

'  Mason,  *  Karens,'  in  '  Journ.  As.  Soc.  Bengal,'  1865,  part  ii.  p.  217. 

"  Callaway,  '  Zulu  Tales,'  vol.  i.  p.  294. 

'  Burton,  *  Dahome,'  vol.  ii.  p.  148  ;  see  242. 


i''-' 
\\\. 


MYTHOLOGY. 


295 


rma  say  it  is 
r  men.  .  .  . 
1  or  violent 
f  drowning, 
18  devoured 

it  becomes 
1  in  the  sky 
Ivr-inl  i)w, 
tttt)r.  look 
ovil  death." 
them, "  The 
re,  lest  some 
La  Rainbow 
inyone,  it  is 

Zulu  ideas 
inbow  lives 
I  snake;  or 
1  it  touches 
re  afraid  to 
w  in  it,  and 
e  Rainbow, 
the  ground, 
1  eruptions. 

on  a  man, 
lome,  Danh 

beads  and 

dless  tales 
nature,  the 
s  and  wood 
ndering  by 
such  beings 
o,  as  when, 
waterfalls 

ii.  p.  217. 


nishcfl  through  the  lodgo  as  a  raging  current,  bf>Arlng  rock* 
and  ("oes  aloiij;  "n  its  tremendous  oourMr,  and  then  the 
guardian  spirit  of  the  islftnds  of  Lake  Superior  enters  in 
the  guise  of  rolling  waves  covt  /  ''"1  with  sih  or-sparkllng 
foam.  *  Or  they  may  be  guiding  and  power  giving  spirits  of 
nature,  like  the  spirit  Fugamu,  whose  work  is  the  cataract 
of  the  Nguyai.and  who  still  wanders  night  and  day  around 
it,  though  the  negroes  who  toll  of  him  can  no  longer  woe  his 
bodily  form.''  The  belief  prevailing  through  the  lower 
culture  that  the  diseases  which  vex  mankind  are  brought 
by  individual  personal  spirits,  is  one  which  has  produced 
striking  examples  of  mythic  development.  Thus  in  B  raia 
the  Karen  lives  in  terror  of  the  mad  '  la,'  the  epileptic  la,' 
and  the  rest  of  the  seven  evil  demons  who  go  about  seeking 
his  life  ;  and  it  is  with  a  fancy  not  uany  degrees  removed 
from  this  early  stage  of  thought  th/it  the  Persian  sees  in 
bodily  shape  the  apparition  of  Al,  the  scarlet  fever : — 

'  Would  you  know  Al  ?  she  seems  a  'jlushing  maid, 
With  locks  of  flame  and  cheeks  all  rosy  red.'  ^ 

It  is  with  this  deep  old  spiritualistic  bt  lief  clearly  in  vi  ew 
that  the  ghastly  tales  are  to  be  read  where  pestilence  ajid 
death  come  on  their  errand  in  weird  human  shape.  To  the 
mind  of  the  Israelite,  death  and  pestilencf  took  the  personal 
form  of  the  destroying  angel  who  smote  the  doomed.*  When 
the  great  plague  raged  in  Justinian's  time  men  saw  on  the 
sea  brazen  barks  whose  crews  were  black  and  headless  men, 
and  where  they  landed,  the  pestilence  brorve  out.'  When 
the  plague  fell  on  Rome  in  Gregory's  time  the  saint  rising 
from  prayer  saw  Michael  standing  with  h-^  bloody  sword 
on  Hadrian's  castle — the  archangel  stand-  there  yet  in 
bronze,  giving  the  old  fort  its  newer  name  oi  the  Castle  of 


»  Schoolcraft,  '  Algic  Res.'  vol.  ii.  p.  148. 

<■  Du  Chaillu,  '  Ashango-land,'  p.  106. 

'  Jas.  Atkinson,  '  Customs  of  the  Women  of  Pars  ia,'  p.  49. 

«  2  Sam.  xxiv.  16  ;  2  Kings  xix.  35. 

*  G.  S.  Assemanni,  '  Bibliotheca  Orientalis,'  ii.  86. 


'■■J 


'i 


296 


MYTHOLOGY. 


u 


St.  Angelo.  Among  a  whole  group  of  stories  of  the  pes- 
tilence seen  in  personal  shape  travelling  to  and  fro  in  the 
land,  perhaps  there  is  none  more  vivid  than  this  Slavonic 
one.  There  sat  a  Russian  under  a  larch-tree,  and  the 
sunshine  glared  like  fire.  He  saw  something  coming  from 
afar;  he  looked  again — it  was  the  Pest-maiden,  huge  of 
stature,  all  shrouded  in  linen,  striding  towards  him.  He 
would  have  fled  in  terror,  but  the  form  grasped  him  with 
her  long  outstretched  hand.  "  Knowest  thou  the  Pest  ? " 
she  said ;  "  I  am  she.  Take  me  on  thy  shoulders  and  carry 
me  through  all  Russia;  miss  no  village,  no  town,  for  I 
must  visit  all.  But  fear  not  for  thyself,  thou  shalt  be  safe 
amid  the  dying."  Clinging  with  her  long  hands,  she  clam- 
bered on  the  peasant's  back ;  he  stepped  onward,  saw  the 
form  above  him  as  he  went,  but  felt  no  burden.  First  he 
bore  her  to  the  towns ;  they  found  there  joyous  dance  and 
song ;  but  the  form  waved  her  linen  shroud,  and  joy  and 
mirth  were  gone.  As  the  wi'etched  man  looked  round, 
he  saw  mourning,  he  heard  the  tolling  of  the  bells,  there 
came  funeral  processions,  the  graves  could  not  hold  the 
dead.  He  passed  on,  and  coming  near  each  village  heard 
the  shriek  of  the  dying,  saw  all  faces  white  in  the  desolate 
houses.  But  high  on  the  hill  stands  his  own  hamlet: 
his  wife,  his  little  children  are  there,  and  the  aged  parents, 
and  his  heart  bleeds  as  he  draws  near.  With  strong  gripe 
he  holds  the  maiden  fast,  and  plunges  with  her  beneath 
the  waves.  He  sank :  she  rose  again,  but  she  quailed  before 
a  heart  so  fearless,  and  fled  far  away  to  the  forest  and  the 
mountain.'  ^ 

Yet,  if  mythology  be  surveyed  in  a  more  comprehensive 
view,  it  is  seen  that  its  animistic  development  falls  within  a 
broader  generalization  still.  The  explanation  of  the  course 
and  change  of  nature,  as  caused  by  life  such  as  the  life  of 
the  thinking  man  who  gazes  on  it,  is  but  a  part  of  a  far 
wider  mental  process.    It  belongs  to  that  great  doctrine  of 

*  Hanusch,  '  Slav.  Mythus,'  p.  322.    Compare  Torquemada,  '  Monarquia 
Indiana,'  i.  e.  14  (Mexico);  Bastiuii,  'Psyciioiogie,'p.  l'J7. 


1 


>  of  the  pes- 
i  fro  in  the 
lis  Slavonic 
Be,  and  the 
joming  from 
en,  huge  of 
s  him.  He 
sd  him  with 
the  Pest?" 
rs  and  carry 
town,  for  I 
halt  be  safe 
is,  she  clam- 
ird,  saw  the 
a.  First  he 
i  dance  and 
md  joy  and 
oked  round, 
bells,  there 
ot  hold  the 
illage  heard 
the  desolate 
wn  hamlet: 
jed  parents, 
strong  gripe 
ler  beneath 
ailed  before 
est  and  the 

aprehensive 
Us  within  a 
f  the  course 
the  life  of 
irt  of  a  far 
doctrine  of 

I,  'Monarquia 


MYTHOLOGY. 


297 


analogy,  from  which  we  have  gained  so  much  of  our  appre- 
hension of  the  world  around  us.  Distrusted  as  it  now  is  by 
severer  science  for  its  misleading  results,  analogy  is  still  to 
us  a  chief  means  of  discovery  and  illustration,  while  in 
earlier  grades  of  education  its  influence  was  all  but  para- 
mount. Analogies  which  are  but  fancy  to  us  were  to  men 
of  past  ages  reality.  They  could  see  the  flame  licking  its 
yet  undevoured  prey  with  tongues  of  fire,  or  the  serpent 
gliding  along  the  waving  sword  from  hilt  to  point ;  they 
could  feel  a  live  creature  gnawing  within  their  bodies  in  the 
pangs  of  hunger ;  they  heard  the  voices  of  the  hill-dwarfs 
answering  in  the  echo,  and  the  chariot  of  the  Heaven-god 
rattling  in  thunder  over  the  solid  firmament.  Men  to  whom 
these  were  living  thoughts  had  no  need  of  the  schoolmaster 
and  his  rules  of  composition,  his  injunctions  to  use  metaphor 
cautiously,  and  to  take  continual  care  to  make  all  similes 
consistent.  The  similes  of  the  old  bards  and  orators  were 
consistent,  because  they  seemed  to  see  and  hear  and  feel 
them :  what  we  call  poetry  was  to  them  real  life,  not  as  to 
the  modern  versemaker  a  masquerade  of  gods  and  heroes, 
shepherds  and  shepherdesses,  stage  heroines  and  philosophic 
savages  in  paint  and  feathers.  It  was  with  a  far  deeper 
consciousness  that  the  circumstance  of  nature  was  worked 
out  in  endless  imaginative  detail  in  ancient  days  and 
among  uncultured  races. 

Upon  the  sky  above  the  hill-country  of  Orissa,  Pidzu 
Pennu,  the  Rain-god  of  the  Khonds,  rests  as  he  pours  down 
the  showers  through  his  sieve.^  Over  Peru  there  stands  a 
princess  with  a  vase  of  rain,  and  when  her  brother  strikes 
the  pitcher,  men  hear  the  shock  in  thunder  and  see  the  flash 
in  lightning.^  To  the  old  Greeks  the  rainbow  seemed 
stretched  down  by  Jove  from  heaven,  a  purple  sign  of  war 
and  tempest,  or  it  was  the  personal  Iris,  messenger  between 
gods  and  men.^      To  the  South  Sea  islander  it  was  the 

'  Macpherson,  '  India,'  p.  367. 

"  Markbam.  '  Ouifilina  Gr.  and  Die'  p.  9. 

=  Welcker,  '  Griech.  GOtterl.'  vol.  i.  p.  690. 


298 


MYTHOLOGY. 


€ 


*.i 

■"■, 
m 

m 
I 

9- 

t 

tl. 


heaven-ladder  where  heroes  of  old  climbed  up  and  down ;  ^ 
and  so  to  the  Scandinavian  it  was  Bifrdst,  the  trembling 
bridge,  timbered  of  three  hues  and  stretched  from  sky  to 
earth ;  while  in  German  folk-lore  it  is  the  bridge  where  the 
souls  of  the  just  are  led  by  their  guardian  angels  across  to 
paradise.*^  As  the  Israelite  called  it  the  bow  of  Jehovah  in 
the  clouds,  it  is  to  the  Hindu  the  bow  of  Kama,''  and  to 
the  Finn  the  bow  of  Tiermes  the  Thunderer,  who  slays 
with  it  the  sorcerers  that  hunt  after  men's  lives ;  *  it  is 
imagined,  moreover,  as  a  gold-embroidered  scarf,  a  head- 
dress of  feathers,  St.  Bernard's  crown,  or  the  sickle  of  an 
Esthonian  deity.*  And  yet  through  all  such  endless  varieties 
of  mythic  conception,  there  runs  one  main  principle,  the 
evident  suggestion  and  analogy  of  u-arre.  It  has  been 
said  of  the  savages  of  North  Amerioa,  taat '  there  is  always 
something  actual  and  physical  to  ground  an  Indian  fancy 
on.'  ^  The  saying  goes  too  far,  but  within  limits  it  is  em- 
phatically true,  not  of  North  American  Indians  alone,  but 
of  mankind. 

Such  resemblances  as  have  just  been  displayed  thrust 
themselves  directly  on  the  mind,  without  any  necessary  in- 
tervention of  words.  Deep  as  language  lies  in  our  mental 
life,  the  direct  comparison  of  object  with  object,  and  action 
with  action,  lies  yet  deeper.  The  myth-maker's  mind  shows 
forth  even  among  the  deaf-and-dumb,  who  work  out  just 
such  analogies  of  nature  in  their  wordless  thought.  Again 
and  again  they  have  been  found  to  suppose  themselves 
taught  by  their  guardians  to  worship  and  pray  to  sun,  moon, 
and  stars,  as  personal  creatures.  Others  have  described 
their  early  thoughts  of  the  heavenly  bodies  as  analogous  to 
things  within  their  reach,  one  fancying  the  moon  made  like 
a  dumpling  and  rolled  over  the  tree-tops  like  a  marble  across 


»  Ellis,  '  Polyn.  Res.'  vol.  i.  p.  231 ;  Polack,  '  New.  Z.'  vol.  i.  p.  273. 

*  Grimm,  '  D.  M.'  pp.  694-6, 

"  Ward,  '  Hindoos,'  vol.  i.  p.  140. 

♦  Castren,  '  Finnische  Mythologie,'  pp.  48,  49. 

'  Delbriick  in  Lazarus  and  Steinthal's  Zeitschrift,  vol.  iii.  p.  269. 

•  Schoolcraft,  part  iii.  p.  520. 


MYTHOLOGY. 


299 


ad  down ;  ^ 
1  trembling 
rom  sky  to 
B  where  the 
Is  across  to 
Jehovah  in 
na,''  and  to 
who  slays 
ves ;  *  it  is 
irf,  a  head- 
ickle  of  an 
jss  varieties 
inciple,  the 
b  has  been 
re  is  always 
idian  fancy 
its  it  is  em- 
s  alone,  but 

lyed  thrust 

cessary  in- 

our  mental 

and  action 

mind  shows 

rk  out  just 

ht.    Again 

themselves 

sun,  moon, 

described 
nalogous  to 

made  like 
irble  across 


i.  p.  273. 


p.  26!). 


a  table,  and  the  stars  cut  out  with  great  scissors  and  stuck 
against  the  sky,  while  another  supposed  the  moon  a  furnace 
and  the  stars  fire-grates,  which  the  people  above  the  firma- 
ment light  up  as  we  kindle  fires.^  Now  the  mythology  of 
mankind  at  large  is  full  of  conceptions  of  nature  like  these, 
and  to  assume  for  them  no  deeper  original  source  than  meta- 
phorical phrases,  would  be  to  ignore  one  of  the  great  transi- 
tions of  our  intellectual  history. 

Language,  there  is  no  doubt,  has  had  a  great  share  in  the 
formation  of  myth.  The  mere  fact  of  its  individualizing  in 
words  such  notions  as  winter  and  summer,  cold  and  heat, 
war  and  peace,  vice  and  virtue,  gives  the  myth-maker  the 
means  of  imagining  these  thoughts  as  personal  beings. 
Language  not  only  acts  in  thorough  unison  with  the  imagi- 
nation whose  product  it  expresses,  but  it  goes  on  producing 
of  itself,  and  thus,  by  the  side  of  the  mythic  conceptions  in 
which  language  has  followed  imagination,  we  have  others  in 
which  language  has  led,  and  imagination  has  followed  in  the 
track.  These  two  actions  coincide  too  closely  for  their 
efiects  to  be  thoroughly  separated,  but  they  should  be  dis- 
tinguished as  far  as  possible.  For  myself,  I  am  disposed 
to  think  (differing  here  in  some  measure  from  Proxessor 
Max  Miiller's  view  of  the  subject)  that  the  mythology  of  the 
lower  races  rests  especially  on  a  basis  of  real  and  sensible 
analogy,  and  that  the  great  expansion  of  verbal  metaphor 
into  myth  belongs  to  more  advanced  periods  of  civilization. 
In  a  word,  I  take  material  myth  to  be  the  primary,  and 
verbal  myth  to  be  the  secondary  formation.  But  whether 
this  opinion  be  historically  sound  or  not,  the  difference  in 
nature  between  myth  founded  on  fact  and  myth  founded  on 
word  is  sufficiently  manifest.  The  want  of  reality  in  verbal 
metaphor  cannot  be  effectually  hidden  by  the  utmost  stretch 
of  imagination.  In  spite  of  this  essential  weakness,  however, 
the  habit  of  realizing  everything  that  words  can  describe  is 

'  Sicard,  'Th(5orie  des  Signes,  &c.'  Paris,  1808,  vol.  ii.  p.  634;  'Personal 
Recnlloctions '  by  Charlotte  Elizabeth.  London,  1S41,  p.  182  ;  Dr.  Orpen, 
'  The  Contrast,'  p.  25.    Compare  Meiners,  vol.  i.  p.  42. 


n 


'i 


300 


MYTHOLOGY. 


'^'  liii 


" 


E '' 


one  which  has  grown  and  flourished  in  the  world.  Descrip- 
tive names  become  personal,  the  notion  of  personality 
stretches  to  take  in  even  the  most  abstract  notions  to  which 
a  name  may  be  applied,  and  realized  name,  epithet,  and 
metaphor  pass  into  interminable  mythic  growths  by  the 
process  which  Max  MUller  has  so  aptly  characterized  as  '  a 
disease  of  language.'  It  would  be  difficult  indeed  to  define 
the  exact  thought  lying  at  the  root  of  every  mythic  concep- 
tion, but  in  easy  cases  the  course  of  formation  can  be  quite 
well  followed.  North  American  tribes  have  personified 
Nipinukhe  and  Pipiinukhe,  the  beings  who  bring  the  spring 
(nipin)  and  the  winter  (pipun) ;  Nipinukhe  brings  the  heat 
and  birds  and  verdure,  Pipunukhe  ravages  with  his  cold 
winds,  his  ice  and  snow ;  one  comes  as  the  other  goes,  and 
between  them  they  divide  the  world.^  Just  such  personifi- 
cation as  this  furnishes  the  staple  of  endless  nature- 
metaphor  in  our  own  European  poetry.  In  the  springtime 
it  comes  to  be  said  that  May  has  conquered  Winter,  his 
gate  is  open,  he  has  sent  letters  before  him  to  tell  the  fruit 
that  he  is  coming,  his  tent  is  pitched,  he  brings  the  woods 
their  summer  clothing.  Thus,  when  Night  is  personified, 
we  see  how  it  comes  to  pass  that  Day  is  her  son,  and  how 
each  in  a  heavenly  chariot  drives  round  the  world.  To 
minds  in  this  mythologic  stage,  the  Curse  becomes  a  per- 
sonal being,  hovering  in  space  till  it  can  light  upon  its 
victim  ;  Time  and  Nature  arise  as  real  entities ;  Fate  and 
Fortune  become  personal  arbiters  of  our  lives.  But  at 
last,  as  the  change  of  meaning  goes  on,  thoughts  that 
once  had  a  more  real  sense  fade  into  mere  poetic  forms 
of  speech.  We  have  but  to  compare  the  effect  of  ancient 
and  modern  personification  on  our  own  minds,  to  under- 
stand something  of  what  has  happened  in  the  interval. 
Milton  may  be  consistent,  classical,  majestic,  when  he  tells 
how  Sin  and  Death  sat  within  the  gates  of  hell,  and 
how  they  built  their  bridge  of  length  prodigious  across 
the  deep  abyss  to  earth.  Yet  such  descriptions  leave 
'  Le  Jeune,  in  '  Rei.  des  Jes.  dans  la  Nouvelle  France,'  1634,  p.  13. 


MYTHOLOGY. 


301 


i.    Descrip- 
personality 
ns  to  which 
spithet,  and 
rths  by  the 
erized  as  '  a 
ed  to  define 
thic  concep- 
}an  be  quite 
personified 
g  the  spring 
ngs  the  heat 
ith  his  cold 
er  goes,  and 
ch  personifi- 
ess    nature- 
}  springtime 
Winter,  his 
ell  the  fruit 
s  the  woods 
personified, 
)n,  and  how 
world.     To 
lomes  a  per- 
it  upon  its 
3 ;  Fate  and 
3S.     But  at 
3ughts   that 
joetic  forms 
t  of  ancient 
to  under- 
lie interval, 
len  he  tells 
hell,  and 
jious  across 
itions  leave 

>-di,  p.  Id. 


i 


but  scant  sense  of  meaning  on  modern  minds,  and  we 
are  apt  to  say,  as  we  might  of  some  counterfeit  bronze 
from  Naples,  'For  a  sham  antique  how  cleverly  it  is 
done.'  Entering  into  the  mind  of  the  old  Norseman, 
we  guess  how  much  more  of  meaning  than  the  cleverest 
modern  imitation  can  carry,  lay  in  his  pictures  of  Hel,  the 
death-goddess,  stern  and  grim  and  livid,  dwelling  in  her 
high  and  strong-barred  house,  and  keeping  in  her  nine 
worlds  the  souls  of  the  departed ;  Hunger  is  her  dish. 
Famine  is  her  knife.  Care  is  her  bed,  and  Misery  her 
cui-tain.  When  such  old  material  descriptions  are  trans- 
ferred to  modern  times,  in  spite  of  all  the  accuracy  of  re- 
production their  spirit  is  quite  changed.  The  story  of  the 
monk  who  displayed  among  his  relics  the  garments  of  St. 
Faith  is  to  us  only  a  jest ;  and  we  call  it  quaint  humour 
when  Charles  Lamb,  falling  old  and  infirm,  once  wrote  to  a 
friend, '  My  bed-fellows  are  Cough  and  Cramp ;  we  sleep 
three  in  a  bed.'  Perhaps  we  need  not  appreciate  the 
drollery  any  the  less  for  seeing  in  it  at  once  a  consequence 
and  a  record  of  a  past  intellectual  life. 

The  distinction  of  grammatical  gender  is  a  process 
intimately  connected  with  the  formation  of  myths.  Gram- 
matical gender  is  of  two  kinds.  What  may  be  called  sexual 
gender  is  familiar  to  all  classically-educated  Englishmen, 
though  their  mother  tongue  has  mostly  lost  its  traces. 
Thus  in  Latin  not  only  are  such  words  as  homo  andfemina 
classed  naturally  as  masculine  and  feminine,  but  such  words 
as  pes  and  gladius  are  made  masculine,  and  biga  and  navis 
feminine,  and  the  same  distinction  is  actually  drawn 
between  such  abstractions  as  honos  and  fides.  That  sexless 
objects  and  ideas  should  thus  be  classed  as  male  and  female, 
in  spite  of  a  new  gender — the  neuter  or  '  neither '  gender 
— having  been  defined,  seems  in  part  explained  by  consider- 
ing this  latter  to  have  been  of  later  formation,  and  the 
original  Indo-European  genders  to  have  been  only  masculine 
and  feminine,  as  is  actually  the  case  in  Hebrew.  Though 
the  practice  of  attributing  sex  to  objects  that  have  none  is 


-   ■■« 


'.1 


i  'I 


302 


MYTHOLOGY. 


'  I;:  >'' 


m. 


not  easy  to  explain  in  detail,  yet  there  seems  nothing 
mysterious  in  its  principles,  to  judge  from  one  at  least  of 
its  main  ideas,  which  is  still  quite  intelligible.  Language 
makes  an  admirably  appropriate  distinction  between  strong 
and  weak,  stern  and  gentle,  rough  and  delicate,  when  it 
contrasts  them  as  male  and  female.  It  is  possible  to  under- 
stand even  such  fancies  as  those  which  Pietro  della  Valle 
describes  among  the  mediaeval  Persians,  distinguishing 
between  male  and  female,  that  is  to  say,  practically  between 
robust  and  tender,  even  in  such  things  as  food  and  cloth, 
air  and  water,  and  prescribing  their  proper  use  accordingly.^ 
And  no  phrase  could  be  more  plain  and  forcible  than  that 
of  the  Dayaks  of  Borneo,  who  say  of  a  heavy  downpour  of 
rain,  '  ujatn  arai,  'sa ! ' — '  a  he  rain  this  1 '  '^  Difficult  e-i 
it  may  be  to  decide  how  far  objects  and  thoughts  were 
classed  in  language  as  male  and  female  because  they  were 
personified,  and  how  far  they  were  personified  because  they 
were  classed  as  male  and  female,  it  is  evident  at  any  rate 
that  these  two  processes  fit  together  and  promote  each 
other.  ^ 

Moreover,  in  studying  languages  which  lie  beyond  the 
range  of  common  European  scholarship,  it  is  found  that  the 
theory  of  grammatical  gender  must  be  extended  into  a  wider 
field.  The  Dravidian  languages  of  South  India  make  the 
interesting  distinction  between  a  'high-caste  or  major 
gender,'  which  includes  rational  beings,  i.  e.  deities  and 
men,  and  a  *  caste-less  or  minor  gender,'  which  includes 
irrational  objects,  whether  living  animals  or  lifeless  things.* 
The  distinction  between  an  animate  and  an  inanimate 
gender  appears  with  especial  import  in  a  family  of  North 
American  Indian  languages,  the  Algonquin.     Here  not  only 


*  Pietro  della  Valle,  *  Viaggi,'  letter  xvi. 
"  '  .lourn.  Ind.  Archip.'  vol.  ii.  p.  xxvii. 


'  See  remarks  on  the  tendency  of  sex-denoting  language  to  produce  myth 
in  Africa,  in  W.  H.  Bleek,  '  Reynard  the  Fox  in  S.  Afr.'  p.  xx. ;  '  Origin  of 
Lang.'  p.  xxiii. 

*  Caldwell,  '  Comp.  Gr.  of  Dravidian  Langs.'  p.  172. 


^iL:      ,1'- 


[ns  nothing 
at  least  of 
Language 
ween  strong 
te,  when  it 
le  to  under- 
della  Valle 
itinguishing 
lly  between 
1  and  cloth, 
ccordingly.^ 
le  than  that 
iownpour  of 
Difl&cult  as 
mghts  were 
a  they  were 
jecause  they 
at  any  rate 
omote  each 

jeyond  the 
md  that  the 
into  a  wider 
la  make  the 
or  major 
deities  and 
Lch  includes 
ess  things.* 
inanimate 
y  of  North 
ere  not  only 


produce  myth 
;  '  Origin  of 


M 


MYTHOLOaY. 


303 


do  all  animals  belong  to  the  animate  gender,  but  also  the 
sun^  moon,  and  stars,  thunder  and  lightning,  as  being 
personified  creatures.  The  animate  gender,  moreover, 
includes  not  only  trees  and  fruits,  but  certain  exceptional 
lifeless  objects  which  appear  to  owe  this  distinction  to  their 
special  sanctity  or  power  ;  such  are  the  stone  which  serves 
as  the  altar  of  sacrifice  to  the  manitus,  the  bow,  the  eagle's 
feather,  the  kettle,  tobacco-pipe,  drum,  and  wampum. 
Where  the  whole  animal  is  animate,  parts  of  its  body 
considered  separately  may  be  inanimate — hand  or  foot,  beak 
or  wing.  Yet  even  here,  for  special  reasons,  special  objects 
are  treated  as  of  animate  gender;  such  are  the  eagle's 
talons,  the  bear's  claws,  the  beaver's  castor,  the  man's  nails, 
and  other  objects  for  which  there  is  claimed  a  peculiar  or 
mystic  power.^  K  to  any  one  it  seems  surprising  that 
savage  thought  should  be  steeped  through  and  through  in 
mythology,  let  him  consider  the  meaning  that  is  involved  in 
a  grammar  of  nature  like  this.  Such  a  language  is  the  very 
reflexion  of  a  mythic  world. 

There  is  yet  another  way  in  which  language  and  mytho- 
logy can  act  and  re-act  on  one  another.  Even  we,  with 
our  blunted  mythologic  sense,  cannot  give  an  individual 
name  to  a  lifeless  object,  such  as  a  boat  or  a  weapon,  with- 
out in  the  very  act  imagining  for  it  something  of  a  personal 
nature.  Among  nations  whose  mythic  conceptions  have 
remained  in  full  vigour,  this  action  may  be  yet  more  vivid. 
Perhaps  very  low  savages  may  not  be  apt  to  name  their 
implements  or  their  canoes  as  though  they  were  live  people, 
but  races  a  few  stages  above  them  show  the  habit  in  perfec- 
tion. Among  the  Zulus  we  hear  of  names  for  clubs, 
Igumgehle  or  Glutton,  U-nothlola-mazibuko  or  He-who- 
watches-the-fords ;  among  names  for  assagais  are  Imbubuzi 
or  Groan-causer,  U-silo-si-lambile  or  Hungry  Leopard,  and 
the  weapon  being  also  used  as  an  implement,  a  certain 

*  Schoolcraft,  'Indian Tribes,'  part  ii.  p.  366.  For  other  cases  see  especially 
Pott  in  Ersch  and  Gniber's  'AUg.  Encyclop.'  art.  'Geschlecht;'  also  D. 
Forbes,  '  Persian  Gr."  p.  26  ;  Latham.  '  Descr.  Eth.'  vol.  ii,  p.  60. 


1 


•s 


304 


MYTHOLOGY. 


m  iiK'^ 


assagai  bears  the  peaceful  name  of  U-simbela-banta-bami, 
He-digs-up-for- my- children.*  A  similar  custom  prevailed 
among  the  New  Zealanders.  The  traditions  of  their 
ancestral  migrations  tell  how  Ngahue  made  from  his  jasper 
stone  those  two  sharp  axes  whose  names  were  Tutauru  and 
Hauhau-te-rangi ;  how  with  these  axes  were  shaped  the 
canoes  Arawa  and  Tainui ;  how  the  two  stone  anchors  of 
Te  Arawa  were  called  Toka-parore  or  Wrystone,  and 
Tu-te-rangi-haruru  or  Like -to -the -roaring -sky.  These 
legends  do  not  break  off  in  a  remote  past,  but  carry  on  a 
chronicle  which  reaches  into  modern  times.  It  is  only 
lately,  the  Maoris  say,  that  the  famous  axe  Tutauru  was 
lost,  and  as  for  the  ear-ornament  named  Kaukau-matua, 
which  was  made  from  a  chip  of  the  same  stone,  they  declare 
that  it  was  not  lost  till  1846,  when  its  owner,  Te  Heuheu, 
perished  in  a  landslip.^  Up  from  this  savage  level  the  same 
childlike  habit  of  giving  personal  names  to  lifeless  objects 
may  be  traced,  as  we  read  of  Thor's  hammer,  Miolnir, 
whom  the  giants  know  as  he  comes  flying  through  the  air, 
or  of  Arthur's  brand,  Excalibur,  caught  by  the  arm  clothed 
in  white  samite  when  Sir  Bedivere  flimg  him  back  into  the 
lake,  or  of  the  Cid's  mighty  sword  Tizona,  the  Firebrand, 
whom  he  vowed  to  bury  in  his  own  breast  were  she  over- 
come through  cowardice  of  his. 

The  teachings  of  a  childlike  primaeval  philosophy  ascrib- 
ing personal  life  to  nature  at  large,  and  the  early  tyranny 
of  speech  over  the  human  mind,  have  thus  been  two  great 
and,  perhaps,  greatest  agents  in  mythologic  development. 
Other  causes,  too,  have  been  at  work,  which  will  be  noticed 
in  connexion  with  special  legendary  groups,  and  a  full  list, 
could  it  be  drawn  up,  might  include  as  contributories  many 
other  intellectual  actions.  It  must  be  thoroughly  under- 
stood, however,  that  such  investigation  of  the  processes  of 
myth-formation  demands  a  lively  sense  of  the  state  of  men's 


»  Callaway,  'Relig.  of  Amazulu,'  p.  166. 

»  Grey,   'Polyn.  Myth.    pp.  132,  &c.,  211;  Shortland,   'Traditions  of 
N.Z.'  p.  15. 


banta-bami, 
m  prevailed 
18  of  their 
m  his  jasper 
Futauru  and 

shaped  the 
3  anchors  of 
ystone,  and 
sky.  These 
b  carry  on  a 

It  is  only 
?utauru  was 
akau-matua, 
they  declare 

Te  Heuheu, 
;vel  the  same 
feless  objects 
ler,  Miolnir, 
pugh  the  air, 

arm  clothed 
jack  into  the 
16  Firebrand, 
Bre  she  over- 

lophy  ascrib- 
a,rly  tyranny 
en  two  great 

evelopment. 
ill  be  noticed 
id  a  full  list, 
utories  many 
ughly  under- 

processes  of 
tate  of  men's 

'Traditions  of 


MYTHOLOGY. 


305 


minds  in  the  mythologic  period.  When  the  Russians  in 
Siberia  listened  to  the  talk  of  the  rude  Kirgis,  they  stood 
amazed  at  the  barbarians'  ceaseless  flow  of  poetic  improvisa- 
tion, and  exclaimed,  'Whatever  these  people  see  gives 
birth  to  fancies  I  *  Just  so  the  civilized  European  may 
contrast  his  own  stiff  orderly  prosaic  thought  with  the  wild 
shifting  poetry  and  legend  of  the  old  myth-maker,  and  may 
say  of  him  that  everything  he  saw  gave  birth  to  fancy. 
Wanting  the  power  of  transporting  himself  into  this  imagi- 
native atmosphere,  the  student  occupied  with  the  analysis 
of  the  mythic  world  may  fail  so  pitiably  in  conceiving  its 
depth  and  intensity  of  meaning,  as  to  convert  it  into  stupid 
fiction.  Those  can  see  more  justly  who  have  the  poet's  gift 
of  throwing  their  minds  back  into  the  world's  older  life,  like 
the  actor  who  for  a  moment  can  forget  himself  and  become 
what  he  pretends  to  be.  Wordsworth,  that  'modem 
ancient,'  as  Max  Muller  has  so  well  called  him,  could  write 
of  Storm  and  Winter,  or  of  the  naked  Sun  climbing  the 
sky,  as  though  he  were  some  Vedic  poet  at  the  head-spring 
of  his  race,  '  seeing '  with  his  mind's  eye  a  mythic  hymn 
to  Agni  or  Varuna.  Fully  to  understand  an  old-world 
myth  needs  not  evidence  and  argument  alone,  but  deep 
poetic  feeling. 

Yet  such  of  us  as  share  but  very  little  in  this  rare  gift, 
may  make  shift  to  let  evidence  in  some  measure  stand  in  its 
stead.  In  the  poetic  stage  of  thought  we  may  see  that 
ideal  conceptions  once  shaped  in  the  mind  must  have 
assumed  some  such  reality  to  grown-up  men  and  women  as 
they  still  do  to  children.  I  have  never  forgotten  the  vivid- 
ness with  which,  as  a  child,  I  fancied  I  might  look  through 
a  great  telescope,  and  see  the  constellations  stand  round  the 
sky,  red,  green,  and  yellow,  as  I  had  just  been  shown  them 
on  the  celestial  globe.  The  intensity  of  mythic  fancy  may 
be  brought  even  more  nearly  home  to  our  minds  by  com- 
paring it  with  the  morbid  subjectivity  of  illness.  Among 
the  lower  races,  and  high  above  their  level,  morbid  ecstasy 
brought  on  by  meditation,  fasting,  narcotics,  excitement,  or 

VOL.  I.  X 


1 


1;  c 


r 

r, 

I 

% 

I 


■  iiiiiiii 


806 


MYTHOLOGY. 


disease,  is  a  state  oommon  and  held  in  honour  among  the 
very  classes  speciaUy  concerned  with  mythic  idealism,  and 
under  its  influence  the  barriers  between  sensation  and 
imagination  break  utterly  away.  A  North  American  Indian 
prophetess  once  related  the  story  of  her  first  vision :  At  her 
solitary  fast  at  womanhood  she  fell  into  an  ecstasy,  and  at 
the  call  of  the  spirits  she  went  up  to  heaven  by  the  path 
that  leads  to  the  opening  of  the  sky;  there  she  heard  a 
voice,  and,  standing  still,  saw  the  figure  of  a  man  standing 
near  the  path,  whose  head  was  surrounded  by  a  brilliant 
halo,  and  his  breast  was  covered  with  squares ;  he  said, 
'  Look  at  me,  my  name  is  Oshauwauegeeghick,  the  Bright 
Blue  Sky!'  Becording  her  experience  afterwards  in  the 
rude  picture-writing  of  he  v  race,  she  painted  this  glorious 
spirit  with  the  hieroglyphic  homo  of  power  and  the  brilliant 
halo  round  his  head.^  We  know  enough  of  the  Indian 
pictographs,  to  guess  how  a  faucy  with  these  familiar  details 
of  the  picture-language  came  into  the  poor  excited  crea- 
ture's mind  ;  but  how  far  is  our  cold  analysis  from  her 
utter  belief  that  in  vision  she  had  really  seen  this  bright 
being,  this  Bed  Indian  Zeus.  Far  from  being  an  isolated 
case,  this  is  sou,rcely  more  than  a  fair  example  of  the  rule 
that  any  idea  shaped  and  made  current  by  mythic  fancy, 
may  at  once  acquire  all  the  definiteness  of  fact.  Even  if  to 
the  first  shaper  it  be  no  more  than  lively  imagination,  yet, 
when  it  comes  to  be  embodied  in  words  and  to  pass  from 
house  to  house,  those  who  hear  it  become  capable  of  the 
most  intense  belief  that  it  may  be  seen  in  material  shape, 
that  it  has  been  seen,  that  they  themselves  have  seen  it. 
The  South  African  who  believes  in  a  god  with  a  crooked  leg 
sees  him  with  a  crooked  leg  in  dreams  and  visions.^  In  the 
time  of  Tacitus  it  was  said,  with  a  more  poetic  imagination, 
that  in  the  far  north  of  Scandinavia  men  might  see  the  very 
forms  of  the  gods  and  the  rays  streaming  from  their  heads.^ 


•  Schoolcraft,  '  Indian  Tribes,'  part  i.  p.  391  and  pi.  55. 
^  Livingstone,  '  S.  Afr.'  p.  124. 
'  Tac.  Germania,  45. 


Miiii^. 


•  w 


ir  among  the 
idealism,  and 
ensation  and 
erican  Indian 
ision :  At  her 
atasy,  and  at 
I  by  the  path 
she  heard  a 
man  standing 
by  a  brilliant 
res;  he  said, 
k,  the  Bright 
wards  in  the 
i  this  glorious 
d  the  brilliant 
of  the  Indian 
Eimiliar  details 
excited  crea- 
ysis  from  her 
3n  this  bright 
ig  an  isolated 
lie  of  the  rule 
lythic  fancy, 
It.    Even  if  to 
igination,  yet, 
to  pass  from 
,pable  of  the 
laterial  shape, 
have  seen  it. 
a  crooked  leg 
lions.'*    In  the 
imagination, 
i  see  the  very 
their  heads.^ 

I  pi.  55. 


MYTHOLOOY. 


8)7 


In  the  6th  century  the  famed  Nile-god  might  still  bo  H'  >  a, 
in  gigantic  human  form,  rising  waist-high  from  the  waters 
of  his  river.^     Want  of  originality  indeed  seems  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  features  in  the  visions  of  mystics.     The 
stiff   Madonnas   with   their   crowns    and    petticoats    still 
transfer  themselves  from  the  pictures  on  cottage  walls  to 
appear  in  spiritual  personality  to  peasant  visionaritH,  as  the 
saints  who  stood  in  vision  before  ecstatic  monks  of  old  were 
to  be   known  by  their  conventional  pictorial  attributes. 
When  the  devil  with  horns,  hoofs,  and  tail  had  once  become 
a  fixed  image  in  the  popular  mind,  of  course  men  saw  him 
in  this  conventional  shape.    So  real  had   St.  Anthony's 
satyr-demon  become  to  men's  opinion,  that  there  is  a  grave 
13th  century  account  of  the  mummy  of  such  a  devil  being 
exhibited  at  Alexandria ;  and  it  is  not  fifteen  years  back 
from  the  present  time  that  there  was  a  story  current  at 
Teignmouth  of  a  devil  walking  up  the  walls  of  the  houses, 
and  leaving  his  fiendish  backward  footprints  in  the  snow. 
Nor  is  it  vision  alone  that  is  concerned  with  the  delusive 
realization  of  the  ideal ;  there  is,  as  it  were,  a  conspiracy  of 
all  the  senses  to  give  it  proof.    To  take  a  striking  instance : 
there  is  an  irritating   herpetic  disease  which  gradually 
encircles  the  body  as  with  a  girdle,  whence  its  English  name 
of  the  shingles  (Latin,  cingulum).    By  an  imagination  not 
difficult  to  understand,  this  disease  is  attributed  to  a  sort  of 
coiling  snake ;  and  I  remember  a  case  in  Cornwall  where  a 
girl's  family  waited  in  great  fear  to  see  if  the  creature 
would  stretch  all  round  her,  the  belief  being  that  if  the 
snake's  head  and  tail  met,  the  patient  would  die.    But  a  yet 
fuller  meaning  of  this  fantastic  notion  is  brought  out  in  an 
account  by  Dr.  Bastian  of  a  physician  who  sufiered  in  a 
painful  disease,  as  though  a  snake  were  twined  round  him, 
and  in  whose  mind  this  idea  reached  such  reality  that  in 
moments  of  excessive  pain  he  could  see  the  snake  and  touch 
its  rough  scales  with  his  hand. 

The  relation  of  morbid  imagination  to  myth  is  peculiarly 

*  Maury,  '  Magie,  &c.'  p.  175. 

X  i 


308 


MYTHOLOOY. 


fv  r         :i:: 


m 
I 

f 


well  instanced  in  the  history  of  a  widespread  boliof,  extend- 
ing through  savage,  barbaric,  classic,  oriental,  and  mediteval 
life,  and  surviving  to  this  day  in  European  superstition. 
This  belief,  which  may  be  conveniently  called  the  Doctrine  of 
Werewolves,  is  that  certain  men,  by  natural  gift  or  magic 
art,  can  turn  for  a  time  into  ravening  wild  beasts.  The 
origin  of  this  idea  is  by  no  means  sufficiently  explained. 
What  we  are  especially  concerned  with  is  the  fact  of  its  pre- 
valence in  the  world.  It  may  be  noticed  that  such  a  notion 
is  quite  consistent  with  the  animistic  theory  that  a  man's 
soul  may  go  out  of  his  body  and  enter  that  of  a  beast  or 
bird,  and  also  with  the  opinion  that  men  may  be  transformed 
into  animals ;  both  these  ideas  having  an  important  place  in 
the  belief  of  mankind,  from  savagery  onward.  The  doctrine 
of  werewolves  is  substantially  that  of  a  temporary  metem- 
psychosis or  metamorphosis.  Now  it  really  occurs  that,  in 
various  forms  of  mental  disease,  patients  prowl  shyly,  long  to 
bite  and  destroy  mankind,  and  even  fancy  themselves  trans- 
formed into  wild  beasts.  Belief  in  the  possibility  of  such 
transformation  may  have  been  the  very  suggesting  cause 
which  led  the  patient  to  imagine  it  taking  place  in  his  own 
person.  But  at  any  rate  such  insane  delusions  do  occur, 
and  physicians  apply  to  them  the  mythologic  term  of  lycan- 
thropy.  The  belief  in  men  being  werewolves,  man-tigers, 
and  the  like,  may  thus  have  the  strong  support  of  the  very 
witnesses  who  believe  themselves  to  be  such  creatures. 
Moreover,  professional  sorcerers  have  taken  up  the  idea,  as 
they  do  any  morbid  delusion,  and  pretend  to  turn  themselves 
and  others  into  beasts  by  magic  art.  Through  the  mass  of 
ethnographic  details  relating  to  this  subject,  there  is  manifest 
a  remarkable  uniformity  of  principle. 

Among  the  non- Aryan  indigenes  of  India,  the  tribes  of  the 
Garo  Hills  describe  as  '  transformation  into  a  tiger '  a  kind 
of  temporary  madness,  apparently  of  the  nature  of  delirium 
tremens,  in  which  the  patient  walks  like  a  tiger,  shunning 
society.^     The  Khonds  of  Orissa  say  that  some  among  them 

*  Eliot  in  '  As.  Res.'  vol.  iii.  p.  32. 


MYTHOLOQY. 


309 


'liof,  oxtond- 
ad  medisBval 
superstition. 
3  Doctrine  of 
ift  or  magic 
beasts.     The 
y  explained, 
ict  of  its  pre- 
uch  a  notion 
ihat  a  man's 
)f  a  beast  or 
)  transformed 
rtant  place  in 
The  doctrine 
jrary  metem- 
ccurs  that,  in 
shyly,  long  to 
iselves  trans- 
pility  of  such 
Testing  cause 
ce  in  his  own 
)n8  do  occur, 
erm  of  lycan- 
i,  man-tigers, 
•t  of  the  very 
ch  creatures, 
p  the  idea,  as 
n  themselves 
the  mass  of 
0  is  manifest 

B  tribes  of  the 
tiger '  a  kind 
e  of  delirium 
rer,  shunning 
among  them 


have  the  art  of  *  mleepa,'  and  by  the  aid  of  a  god  become 
'  mleepa '  tigers  for  the  purpose  of  killing  enemies,  one  of 
th(i  man's  four  souls  going  out  to  animate  the  bestial  form. 
Natural  tigers,  say  the  Khonds,  kill  game  to  benefit  men, 
who  find  it  half  devoured  and  share  it,  whereas  man-killing 
tigers  are  either  incarnations  of  the  wrathful  Earth-goddess, 
or  they  are  transformed  men.^  Thus  the  notion  of  man- 
tigers  serves,  as  similar  notions  do  elsewhere,  to  account  for 
the  fact  that  certain  individual  wild  beasts  show  a  peculiar 
hostility  to  man.  Among  the  Ho  of  Singbhoom  it  is  related, 
as  an  example  of  similar  belief,  that  a  man  named  Mora  saw 
his  wife  killed  by  a  tiger,  and  followed  the  beast  till  it  led  him 
to  the  house  of  a  man  named  Poosa.  Telling  Poosa's  rela- 
tives of  what  had  occurred,  they  replied  that  they  were  aware 
that  he  had  the  power  of  becoming  a  tiger,  and  accordingly 
they  brought  him  out  bound,  and  Mora  deliberately  killed 
him.  Inquisition  being  made  by  the  authorities,  the  family 
deposed,  in  explanation  of  their  belief,  that  Poosa  had  one 
night  devoured  an  entire  goat,  roaring  like  a  tiger  whilst 
eating  it,  and  that  on  another  occasion  he  told  his  friends  he 
had  a  longing  to  eat  a  particular  bullock,  and  that  very  night 
that  very  bullock  was  killed  and  devoured  by  a  tiger.^ 
South-eastern  Asia  is  not  less  familiar  with  the  idea  of 
sorcerers  turning  into  man-tigers  and  wandering  after  prey  ; 
thus  the  Jakuns  of  the  Malay  Peninsula  believe  that  when  a 
man  becomes  a  tiger  to  revenge  himself  on  his  enemies,  the 
transformation  happens  just  before  he  springs,  and  has  been 
seen  to  take  place.^ 

How  vividly  the  imagination  of  an  excited  tribe,  once 
inoculated  with  a  belief  like  this,  can  realize  it  into  an  event, 
is  graphically  told  by  Dobrizhofter  among  the  Abipones  of 
South  America.  When  a  sorcerer,  to  get  the  better  of  an 
tncmy,  threatens  to  change  himself  into  a  tiger  and  tear  his 


'  Macpheraon,  '  India,'  pp.  92,  09,  108. 

=  Dalton,  '  Kols  of  Chota-Nagpore  '  in  'Tr.  Eth.  Soc'  vol  vi.  p.  32. 
'  J.  Cameron,  '  Malayan  India,'  p.  393  ;  Baatian,  '  Oeall.  Asien,'  vol.  i. 
p.  119  ;  vol.  iii.  pp.  261,  273;  'As.  Res.'  vol.  vi.  p.  173. 


^;i 


•  ( 


m. 


310 


MYTHOLOGY. 


0^  '■'■ 


«*7 


IK 

I 

» 


It. 


KlKfl:. 


tribesmen  to  pieces,  no  sooner  does  he  begin  to  roar,  than 
all  the  neighbours  fly  to  a  distance  ;  but  still  they  hear  the 
feigned  sounds.  '  Alas  1 '  they  cry,  '  his  whole  body  is 
beginning  to  be  covered  with  tiger-spots!'  'Look,  his 
nails  are  growing  1'  the  fear-struck  women  exclaim,  although 
they  cannot  see  the  rogue,  who  is  concealed  within  his  tent, 
but  distracted  fear  presents  things  to  their  eyes  which  have 
no  real  existence.  '  You  daily  kill  tigers  in  the  plain  with- 
out di'ead,'  said  the  missionary ;  '  why  then  should  you 
weakly  fear  a  false  imaginary  tiger  in  the  town?'  'You 
fathers  don't  understand  these  matters,'  they  reply  with  a 
smile.  '  We  never  fear,  but  kill  tigers  in  the  plain,  because 
we  can  see  them.  Artificial  tigers  we  do  fear,  because  they 
can  neither  be  seen  nor  killed  by  us.'  ^  The  sorcerers  who 
induced  assemblies  of  credulous  savages  to  believe  in  this 
monstrous  imposture,  were  also  the  professional  spiritualistic 
mediums  of  the  tribes,  whose  business  it  wat  to  hold  inter- 
course with  the  spirits  of  the  dead,  causing  tnem  tc  appear 
visibly,  or  carrying  on  audible  dialogues  with  them  behind  a 
curtain.  Africa  is  especially  rich  in  myths  of  man-lions, 
man-leopards,  man-hysenas.  In  the  Kanuri  language  of 
Bornu,  there  is  grammatically  formed  from  the  word 
'  bultu,'  a  hysena,  the  verb  '  bultungin,'  meaning  '  I  trans- 
form myself  into  a  hysena ; '  and  the  natives  maintain  that 
there  is  a  town  called  Kabutiloa,  where  every  man  possesses 
this  faculty.^  The  tribe  of  Budas  in  Abyssinia,  iron- workers 
and  potters,  are  believed  to  combine  with  these  civilized 
avocations  the  gift  of  the  evil  eye  and  the  power  of  turning 
into  hyaenas,  wherefore  they  are  excluded  from  society  and 
the  Christian  sacrament.  In  the '  Life  of  Nathaniel  Pearce,' 
the  testimony  of  one  Mr.  Coffin  is  printed.  A  young  Buda, 
his  servant,  came  for  leave  of  absence,  which  was  granted ; 
but  scarcely  was  Mr.  Coffin's  head  turned  to  his  other 


'  Dobrizhoffer,  '  Abipones,'  vol.  ii.  p.  77.  See  J.  G.  Muller,  'Amer. 
Urrelig.'  p.  63  ;  Martius,  '  Ethn.  Amer.'  vol.  i.  p.  652  ;  Oviedo,  '  Nicaragua,' 
p.  229  ;  Piedrahitta,  '  Nuevo  Reyno  de  Qranada,'  part  i,  lib.  i.  c.  3. 

»  KOlle,  '  Air.  Lit.  and  Kanuri  Vocab.'  p.  275. 


MYTHOLOGY. 


311 


to  roar,  than 
they  hear  the 
dole   body  is 
'Look,  his 
aim,  although 
ithin  his  tent, 
)s  which  have 
le  plain  with- 
1  should  you 
ownr     'You 
'  reply  with  a 
plain,  because 
,  because  they 
sorcerers  who 
jelieve  in  this 
il  spiritualistic 
to  hold  inter- 
iiem  tc  appear 
them  behind  a 
of  man-lions, 
i  language  of 
)m   the    word 
ning  'I  trans- 
maintain  that 
man  possesses 

iron-workers 
these  civilized 
wer  of  turning 
>m  society  and 
haniel  Pearce,' 
I  young  Buda, 

was  granted ; 

to  his   other 


servants,  when  some  of  them  called  out,  pointing  in  the 
direction  the  Buda  had  taken,  '  Look,  look,  he  is  turning 
himself  into  a  hyaena.*     Mr.  CoflSn  instantly  looked  round, 
the  young  man  had  vanished,  and  a  large  hyaena  was 
running  off  at  about  a  hundred  paces'  distance,  in  full  light 
on  the  open  plain,  without  tree  or  bush  to  intercept  the 
view.    The  Buda  came  back  next  morning,  and  as  usual 
rather  affected  to  countenance  than  deny  the  prodigy.    Coffin 
says,  moreover,  that  the  Budas  wear  a  peculiar  gold  ear- 
ring, and  this  he  has  frequently  seen  in  the  ears  of  hyaenas 
shot  in  traps,  or  speared  by  himself  and  others ;  the  Budas 
are  dreaded  for  their  magical  arts,  and  the  editor  of  the  book 
suggests  that  the}'  put  ear-rings  in  hyaena's  ears  to  encourage 
a  profitable  superstition.^     Mr.  Mansfield  Parkyns'  more 
recent  account  shows  how  thoroughly  this  belief  is  part 
and  parcel  of  Abyssinian  spiritualism.    Hysterics,  lethargy, 
morbid  insensibility  to  pain,  and  the  '  demoniacal  posses- 
sion,' in  which  the  patient  speaks  in  the  name  and  language 
of  an  intruding  spirit,  are  all  ascribed  to  the  spiritual  agency 
of  the  Budas.    Among  the  cases  described  by  Mr.  Parkyns 
was  that  of  a  servant-woman  of  his,  whose  illness  was  set 
down  to  the  influence  of  one  of  these  blacksmith-hyaenas, 
who  wanted  to  get  her  out  into  the  forest  and  devour  her. 
One  night,  a  hyaena  having  been  heard  howling  and  laughing 
near  the  village,  the  woman  was  bound  hand  and  foot  and 
closely  guarded  in  the  hut,  when  suddenly,  the  hyaena  calling 
close  by,  her  master,  to  his  astonishment,  saw  her  rise 
'  without  her  bonds '  like  a  Davenport  Brother,  and  try  to 
escape.^    Li  Ashango-land,  M.  Du  Chaillu  tells  the  follow- 
ing suggestive  story.     He  was  informed  that  a  leopard  had 
killed  two  men,  and  many  palavers  were  held  to  settle  the 
affair ;  but  this  was  no  ordinary  leopard,  but  a  transformed 
man.    Two  of  Akondogo's  men  had  disappeared,  and  only 


J 


Miiller,  'Amer. 
iedo,  '  Nicaragua,' 
lib.  i.  0.  3. 


*  '  Life  and  Adventures  of  Nathaniel  Pearce '  (1810-9),  ed.  by  J.  J.  Halla, 
London,  1881,  vol.  i.  p.  286  ;  also  *Tr.  Eth.  Soc'  vol.  vi.  p.  288;  Waitz, 
vol.  ii.  p.  504. 

=•  Parkyns,  '  Life  in  Abyssinia '  (1853),  vol.  ii.  p.  146, 


312 


MYTHOLOGY. 


r 

m 
f 


their  blood  was  found,  so  a  great  doctor  was  sent  for,  who 
said  it  was  Akondogo's  own  nephew  and  heir  Akosho.  The 
lad  was  sent  for,  and  when  asked  by  the  chief,  answered 
that  it  was  truly  he  who  had  committed  the  murders,  that  he 
could  not  help  it,  for  he  had  turned  into  a  leopard,  and  his 
heart  longed  for  blood,  and  after  each  deed  he  had  turned 
into  a  man  again.  Akondogo  loved  the  boy  so  much  that  he 
would  not  believe  his  confession,  till  Akosho  took  him  to  a 
place  in  the  forest,  where  lay  the  mangled  bodies  of  the  two 
men,  whom  he  had  really  murdered  under  the  influence  of 
this  morbid  imagination.  He  was  slowly  burnt  to  death,  all 
the  people  standing  by.^ 

Brief  mention  is  enough  for  the  comparatively  well- 
known  Eui'opean  representatives  of  these  beliefs.  What 
with  the  mere  continuance  of  old  tradition,  what  with  the 
tricks  of  magicians,  and  what  with  cases  of  patients  under 
delusion  believing  themselves  to  have  suffered  transforma- 
tion, of  which  a  number  are  on  record,  the  European  series 
of  details  from  ancient  to  modern  ages  is  very  complete. 
Virgil  in  the  Bucolics  shows  the  popular  opinion  of  his 
time  that  the  arts  of  the  werewolf,  the  necromancer  or 
'medium,'  and  the  witch,  were  different  branches  of  one 
craft,  where  he  tells  of  Moeris  as  turning  into  a  wolf  by  the 
use  of  poisonous  herbs,  as  calling  up  souls  from  the  tombs, 
and  as  bewitching  away  crops : — 

'Has  herbas,  atque  haec  Ponto  mihi  lecta  venena 
Ipse  dedit  Moeris ;   nascuntur  plurima  Ponto. 
His  ego  saepe  lupum  fieri,  et  se  condere  sylvis 
Moerin,  saepe  animas  imis  excire  sepulcris, 
Atque  satas  alio  vidi  traducere  messes.'  ^ 

Of  the  classic  accounts,  one  of  the  most  remarkable  is 
Petronius  Arbiter's  story  of  the  transformation  of  a  '  versi- 
pellis '  or  '  turnskin ; '    this  contains  the   episode  of  the 


'  DuChaillu,  'Ashango-land,'p.  52.  For  other  African  details,  see  Waitz, 
vol.  ii.  p.  343  ;  J.  L.  Wilson,  '  W.  Afr.'  pp.  222,  365,  398  ;  Burton,  '  E.  Afr.' 
p.  57  ;  Livingstone,  '  S.  Afr.'  pp.  615,  642  ;  Magyar,  'S.  Afr.'  p.  136. 

-  Virg.  Buool.  eel.  viii.  95. 


MYTHOLOGY. 


313 


it  for,  who 
osho.  The 
:,  answered 
ers,  that  he 
rd,  and  his 
bad  turned 
ich  that  he 
)k  him  to  a 
,  of  the  two 
influence  of 
10  death,  all 

lively  well- 
iefs.    What 
lat  with  the 
ients  under 
transforma- 
jpean  series 
py  complete, 
nion  of  his 
omancer  or 
ches  of  one 
wolf  by  the 
I  the  tombs, 


nena 

vis 


narkable  is 
of  a  '  versi- 
ode  of  the 

nils,  see  Waitz, 
rton,  '  E.  Aft-; 
p.  136. 


wolf  being  wounded  and  the  man  who  wore  its  shape  found 
with  a  similar  wound,  an  idea  not  sufficiently  proved  to 
belong  originally  to  the  lower  races,  but  which  becomes  a 
familiar  feature  in  F.uropean  stories  of  werewolves  and 
witches.  In  Augustine" :  time  magicians  were  persuading 
their  dupes  that  by  means  of  herbs  they  could  turn  them  to 
wolves,  and  the  use  of  saive  for  this  purpose  is  mentioned 
at  a  comparatively  modern  date.  Old  Scandinavian  sagas 
have  their  werewolf  warriors,  and  shape-changers  (ham- 
ramr)  raging  in  fits  of  furious  madness.  The  Danes  still 
know  a  man  who  is  a  werewolf  by  his  eyebrows  meeting, 
and  thus  resembling  a  butterfly,  the  familiar  type  of  the 
soul,  ready  to  fly  off  and  enter  some  other  body.  In  the 
last  year  of  the  Swedish  war  with  Russia,  the  people  of 
Kalmar  said  the  wolves  which  overran  the  land  were  trans- 
formed Swedish  prisoners.  From  Herodotus'  legend  of  the 
Neuri  who  turned  every  year  for  a  few  days  to  wolves,  we 
follow  the  idea  on  Slavonic  ground  to  where  Livonian 
sorcerers  bathe  yearly  in  a  river  and  turn  for  twelve  days  to 
wolves ;  and  widespread  Slavonic  superstition  still  declares 
that  the  wolves  that  sometimes  in  bitter  winters  dare  to 
attack  men,  are  themselves  '  wilkolak,'  men  bewitched  into 
wolf's  shape.  The  modern  Greeks,  instead  of  the  classic 
XvKdv9p<ai{oi,  adopt  the  Slavonic  term  ^pmoXmas  (Bulga- 
rian '  vrkolak ') ;  it  is  a  man  who  falls  into  a  cataleptic 
state,  while  his  soul  enters  a  wolf  and  goes  ravening  for 
blood.  Modern  Germany,  especially  in  the  north,  still 
keeps  up  the  stories  of  wolf-girdles,  and  in  December  you 
must  not  'talk  of  the  wolf'  by  name,  lest  the  werewolves 
tear  you.  Our  English  word  '  werewolf,'  that  is  '  man- 
wolf  (the  'verevulf '  of  Cnut's  Laws),  still  reminds  us  of 
the  old  belief  in  our  own  country,  and  if  it  has  had  for 
centuries  but  little  place  in  English  folklore,  this  has  been 
not  so  much  for  lack  of  superstition,  as  of  wolves.  To 
instance  the  survival  of  the  idea,  transferred  to  another 
animal,  in  the  more  mode. ;n  witch-persecution,  the  following 
Scotch  story  may  serve.     Certain  witches  at  Thurso  for  a 


f 


^ 


314 


MYTHOLOGY. 


|i  I  ■  i 


1       il 


long  time  tormented  an  honest  fellow  under  the  usual  form 
of  cats,  till  one  night  he  put  them  to  flight  with  his  broad- 
sword, and  cut  off  the  leg  of  one  less  nimble  than  the  rest ; 
taking  it  up,  to  his  amazement  he  found  it  to  be  a  woman's 
leg,  and  next  morning  he  discovered  the  old  hag  its  owner 
with  but  one  leg  left.  In  France  the  creature  has  what  is 
historically  the  same  name  as  our  'werewolf;'  viz.  in 
early  forms  *  gerulphus,'  '  garoul,'  and  now  pleonastically 
'  loup-gai'ou.'  The  parliament  of  Franche-Comtd  mad"  a 
law  in  1573  to  expel  the  werewolves  ;  in  1598  the  werewolf 
of  Angers  gave  evidence  of  his  hands  and  feet  turning  to 
wolf's  claws ;  in  1603,  in  the  case  of  Jean  Grenier,  the 
judge  declared  lycanthropy  to  be  an  insane  delusion,  not  a 
crime.  In  1658,  a  French  satirical  description  of  a  magi- 
cian could  still  give  the  following  perfect  account  of  the 
witch-werewolf :  '  I  teach  the  witches  to  take  the  form  of 
wolves  and  eat  children,  and  when  anyone  has  cut  off  one  of 
their  legs  (which  proves  to  be  a  man's  arm)  I  forsake  them 
when  they  are  discovered,  and  leave  them  in  the  power  of 
justice.'  Even  in  our  own  day  the  idea  has  by  no  means 
died  out  of  the  French  peasant's  mind.  Not  ten  years  ago 
in  France,  Mr.  Baring-Gould  found  it  impossible  to  get  a 
guide  after  dark  across  a  wild  place  haunted  by  a  loup- 
garou,  an  incident  which  led  him  afterwards  to  wi'ite  his 
'  Book  of  Werewolves,'  a  monograph  of  this  remarkable 
combination  of  myth  and  madness.^ 

If  we  judged  the  myths  of  early  ages  by  the  unaided 
power  of  our  modem  fancy,  we  might  be  left  unable  to 
account  for  their  immense  effect  on  the  life  and  belief  of 
mankind.     But  by  the  study  of  such  evidence  as  this,  it 


*  For  collections  of  European  evidence,  see  W.  Hertz,  *Der  Werwolf;' 
Baring-Gould,  *  Book  of  Werewolves  ; '  Grimm,  '  D.  M.*  p.  1047  ;  Dasent, 
'  Norse  Tales,'  Introd.  p.  cxix.  ;  Bastian,  '  Mensch.'  vol.  ii.  pp.  82,  566 ; 
Brand,  'Pop.  Ant.'  vol.  i.  p.  812,  vol.  iii.  p.  32  ;  Lecky,  'Hist,  of  Rationalism,' 
vol.  1.  p.  82.  Particular  details  in  Petron.  Arbiter,  Satir.  Ixii. ;  Virgil.  Eclog. 
viii.  97  ;  Plin.  viii.  34  ;  Herodot.  iv.  105 ;  Mela  ii.  1 ;  Augustin.  De  Civ. 
Dei,  xviii.  17  ;  Hanusch,  '  Slav.  Myth.'  pp.  286,  320 ;  Wuttke,  '  Deutsche 
Yoiksafoergiaube,'  p.  118. 


MYTHOLOaY. 


315 


usual  form 
his  broad- 
,n  the  rest ; 
a  woman's 
;  its  owner 
las  what  is 
';'    viz.  in 
jonastically 
ltd  mad"  a 
tie  werewolf 

turning  to 
3renier,  the 
usion,  not  a 

of  a  magi- 
sount  of  the 
I  the  form  of 
jut  off  one  of 
■orsake  them 
bhe  power  of 
;•  no  means 
en  years  ago 
e  to  get  a 
by  a  loup- 

io  write  his 
remarkable 


becomes  possible  to  realize  a  usual  state  of  the  imagination 
among  ancient  and  savage  peoples,  intermediate  between 
the  conditions  of  a  healthy  prosaic  modem  citizen  and  of  a 
raving  fanatic  or  a  patient  in  a  fever- ward.  A  poet  of  our 
own  day  has  still  much  in  common  with  the  minds  of 
uncultured  tribes  in  the  mjrthologic  stage  of  thought.  The 
rude  man's  imaginations  may  be  narrow,  crude,  and 
repulsive,  while  the  poet's  more  conscious  fictions  may  be 
highly  wrought  into  shapes  of  fresh  artistic  beauty,  but 
both  share  in  that  sense  of  the  reality  of  ideas,  which  fortu- 
nately or  unfortunately  modern  education  has  proved  so 
powerful  to  destroy.  The  change  of  meaning  of  a  single 
word  will  tell  the  history  of  this  transition,  ranging  from 
primaeval  to  modern  thought.  From  first  to  last,  the 
processes  of  phantasy  have  been  at  work  ;  but  where  the 
savage  could  see  phantasms,  the  civilized  man  has  come  to 
amuse  himself  with  fancies. 


;he  unaided 
tt  unable  to 
and  belief  of 
as  this,  it 


'Der  Werwolf;' 
1047  ;  Dasent, 
ii.  pp.  82,  566 ; 
of  Rationalism,' 
i. ;  Virgil.  Eclog. 
igustin.  De  Civ. 
ittke,  '  Deutsche 


{iilJ'i 


CHAPTER  IX. 


MYTHOLOGY — contlmicil. 


fe'. . 

•Si... 

ftt, 
r, 

to- 


.iti 


Nature-myths,  their  origin,  canon  of  interpretation,  preservation  of  original 
dense  and  significant  names — Nature-myths  of  upper  savage  races  com- 
pared •^/ith  relatedforms  among  barbaric  and 'jivilized nations — Heaven 
and  Earth  as  Universal  Parents — Sun  and  Moon :  Eclipse  and  Sunset,  as 
Hero  or  Maiden  swallowed  by  Monster  ;  Rising  of  Sun  from  Sea  and 
Descent  to  Under- World  ;  Jaws  of  Night  and  Death,  Symplegades  ;  Eye 
of  Heaven,  eye  of  Odin  and  the  GraifB — Sun  and  Moon  as  mythic  civi- 
lizers — Moon,  her  inconstancy, periodical  death  and  revival — Stars,  their 
generation— Constellations,  their  place  in  Mythology  and  Astronomy — 
Wind  and  Tempest — Thunder — Earthquake. 

From  laying  down  general  principles  of  myth-develop- 
meut,  we  may  now  proceed  to  survey  the  class  of  Nature- 
myths,  such  especially  as  seem  to  have  their  earliest  source 
and  truest  meaning  among  the  lower  races  of  mankind. 

Science,  investigating  nature,  discusses  its  facts  and 
announces  its  laws  in  technical  language  which  is  clear  and 
accurate  to  trained  students,  but  which  falls  only  as  a 
mystic  jargon  on  the  ears  of  barbarians,  or  peasants,  or 
children.  It  is  to  the  comprehension  of  just  these  simple 
unschooled  minds  that  the  language  of  poetic  myth  is 
spoken,  so  far  at  least  as  it  is  true  poetry,  and  not  its 
quaint  affected  imitation.  The  poet  contemplates  the  same 
natural  world  as  the  man  of  science,  but  in  his  so  different 
craft  strives  to  render  difficult  thought  easy  by  making  it 
visible  and  tangible,  above  all  by  referring  the  being  anu 
movement  of  the  world  to  such  personal  life  as  his  hearers 
feel  within  themselves,  and  thus  working  out  in  far- 
stretched  fancy  the  maxim  that '  Man  is  the  measure  of  all 
things.'     Let   but   the  key  be   recovered  to  this   mythic 


MYTHOLOGY. 


317 


ion  of  original 
ige  races  com- 
ions— Heaven 
ind  Sunset,  as 
from  Sea  and 
alegades ;  Eye 
13  mythic  civi- 
1 — Stars,their 
Astronomy— 


;h-develop- 
of  Nature- 
iest  source 
inkind. 
facts   and 
iS  clear  and 
only  as  a 
feasants,  or 
lese  simple 
myth  is 
md  not  its 
es  the  same 
so  different 
making  it 
being  ana 
his  hearers 
)ut  in  far- 
isure  of  all 
his   mythic 


dialect,  and  its  complex  and  shifting  terms  will  translate 
themselves  into  reality,  and  show  how  far  legend,  in  its 
sympathetic  fictions  of  war,  love,  crime,  adventure,  fate,  is 
only  telling  the  perennial  story  of  the  world's  daily  life. 
The  myths  shaped  out  of  those  endless  analogies  between 
man  and  nature  which  are  the  soul  of  all  poetry,  into  those 
half-human  stories  still  so  full  to  us  of  unfading  life  and 
beauty,  are  the  masterpieces  of  an  art  belonging  rather  to 
the  past  than  to  the  present.  The  growth  of  myth  has 
been  checked  by  science,  it  is  dying  of  weights  and 
aeasures,  of  proportions  and  specimens — it  is  not  only 
uying,  but  half  dead,  and  students  are  anatomising  it.  In 
this  world  one  must  do  what  one  can,  and  if  the  moderns 
cannot  feel  myth  as  their  forefathers  did,  at  least  they  can 
analyse  it.  There  is  a  kind  of  intellectual  frontier  with- 
in which  he  must  be  who  will  sympathise  with  mjth, 
while  he  must  be  without  who  will  investigate  it,  and  it  is 
our  fortune  that  we  live  near  this  frontier-line,  and  can  go 
in  and  out.  European  scholars  can  still  in  a  measure 
understand  the  belief  of  Greeks  or  Aztecs  or  Maoris  in 
their  native  myths,  and  at  the  same  time  can  compare  and 
interpret  them  without  the  scruples  of  men  to  whom  such 
tales  are  history,  and  even  sacred  history.  Moreover,  were 
the  whole  human  race  at  a  uniform  level  of  culture  with 
ourselves,  it  would  be  hard  to  bring  our  minds  to  conceive 
of  tribes  in  the  mental  state  to  which  the  early  growth  of 
nature-myth  belongs,  even  as  it  is  now  hard  to  picture  to 
ourselves  a  condition  of  mankind  lower  than  any  that  has 
been  actually  found.  But  the  various  grades  of  existing 
civilization  preserve  the  landmarks  of  a  long  course  of 
history,  and  there  survive  by  millions  savages  and  bar- 
barians whose  minds  still  produce,  in  rude  archaic  forms, 
man's  early  mythic  representations  of  nature. 

Those  who  read  for  the  first  time  the  dissertations  of  the 
modem  school  of  mythologists,  and  sometimes  even  those 
who  have  been  familiar  with  them  for  years,  are  prone  to 
ask,  with  half-incredulous  appreciation  of  the  beauty  and 


318 


MYTHOLOGY. 


r. 
» 

I 

* 

« 


# 


simplicity  of  their  interpretations,  can  they  be  really  true  1 
Can  so  great  a  part  of  the  legendary  lore  of  classic,  bar- 
barian, and  mediaeval  Europe  be  taken  up  with  the  ever- 
lasting depiction  of  Sun  and  Sky,  Dawn  and  Gloaming, 
Day  and  Night,  Summer  and  Winter,  Cloud  and  Tempest ; 
can  so  many  of  the  personages  of  tradition,  for  all  their 
heroic  human  aspect,  have  their  real  origin  in  anthropo- 
morphic myths  of  nature?  Without  any  attempt  to 
discuss  these  opinions  at  large,  it  will  be  seen  that  in- 
spection of  nature-mythology  from  the  present  point  of 
view  tells  in  their  favour,  at  least  as  to  principle.  The 
general  theory  that  suyh  direct  conceptions  of  nature  as 
are  so  naively  and  even  baldly  uttered  in  the  Veda,  are 
among  the  primary  sources  of  mjrth,  is  enforced  by 
evidence  gained  elsewhere  in  the  world.  Especially  the 
traditions  of  sa\age  races  display  mythic  conceptions  of  the 
outer  world,  primitive  like  those  of  the  ancient  Indians, 
agreeing  with  them  in  their  general  character,  and  often 
remarkably  corresponding  in  their  very  episodes.  At  the 
same  time  it  must  be  clearly  understood  that  the  truth  of 
such  a  general  principle  ia  no  warrant  for  all  the  particular 
interpretations  which  mythologists  claim  to  base  upon  it, 
for  of  these  in  fact  many  are  wildly  speculative,  and  many 
hopelessly  unsound.  Nature-myth  demands  indeed  a 
recognition  of  its  vast  importance  in  the  legendary  lore  of 
mankind,  but  only  so  far  as  its  claim  is  backed  by  strong 
and  legitimate  evidence. 

The  close  and  deep  analogies  between  the  life  of  nature 
and  the  life  of  man  have  been  for  ages  dwelt  upon  by  poets 
and  philosophers,  who  in  simile  or  in  argument  have  told  of 
light  and  darkness,  of  calm  and  tempest,  of  birth,  growth, 
change,  decay,  dissolution,  renewal.  But  no  one-sided  in- 
terpretation can  be  permitted  to  absorb  into  a  single  theory 
such  endless  many-sided  correspondences  as  these.  Eash 
inferences  which  on  the  strength  of  mere  resemblance  derive 
episodes  of  myth  from  episodes  of  nature  must  be  regarded 
with  utter  mistrust,  for  the  student  who  has  no  more  strin- 


H 


MYTHOLOGY. 


819 


illy  true  1 
issic,  bar- 
the  ever- 
Glloaining, 
Tempest ; 
•  all  their 
anthropo- 
ttempt   to 
tt  that  in- 
j  point  of 
iple.    The 
nature  as 
Veda,  are 
forced   by 
ecially  the 
ions  of  the 
it  Indians, 
,  and  often 
(s.     At  the 
le  truth  of 
)  particular 
se  upon  it, 
and  many 
indeed   a 
ary  lore  of 
by  strong 

of  nature 
>n  by  poets 
lave  told  of 
th,  growth, 
e-sided  in- 
ngle  theory 
ese.  Kash 
ance  derive 
)e  regarded 
more  strin- 


gent criterion  than  this  for  his  myths  of  sun  and  sky  and 
dawn,  will  find  them  wherever  it  pleases  him  to  seek  them. 
It  mav    e  judged  by  simple  trial  what  such  a  method  may 
lead  to ;  no  legend,  no  allegory,  no  nursery  rhyme,  is  safe 
from   the  hermeneutics  of  a  thorough-going  mythologic 
theorist.     Should  he,  for  instance^  demand  as  his  property 
the  nursery  '  Song  of  Sixpence,'  his  claim  would  be  easily 
established :  obviously  the  four-and-twenty  blackbirds  are 
the  four-and-twenty  hours,  and  the  pie  that  holds  them  is 
the  underlying  earth  covered  with  the  overarching  sky ;  how 
true  a  touch  of  nature  it  is  that  when  the  pie  is  opened, 
that  is,  when  day  breaks,  the  birds  begin  to  sing ;  the 
King  is  the  Sun,  and  his  counting  out  his  money  is  pouring 
out  the  sunshine,  the  golden  shower  of  Danae ;  the  Queen 
is  the  Moon,  and  her  transparent  honey  the  moonlight ;  the 
Maid  is  the  '  rosy-fingered '  Dawn  who  rises  before  the  Sun 
her  master,  and  hangs  out  the  clouds,  his  clothes,  across 
the  sky ;  the  particular  blackbird  who  so  tragically  ends  the 
tale  by  snipping  off  her  nose,  is  the  hour  of  sunrise.    The 
time-honoured  rhyme  really  wants  but  one  thing  to  prove  it 
a  Sun-myth,  that  one  thing  being  a  proof  by  some  argument 
more  valid  than  analogy.     Or  if  historical  characters  be 
selected  with  any  discretion,  it  is  easy  to  point  out  the  solar 
episodes  embodied  in  their  lives.     See  Cortes  landing  in 
Mexico,  and  seeming  to  the  Aztecs  theii*  very  Sun-priest 
Quetzalcoatl,  come  back  from  the  East  to  renew  his  reign 
of  light  and  glory  ;  mark  him  deserting  the  wife  of  his 
youth,  even  as  the  Sun  leaves  the  Dawn,  and  again  in  later 
life  abandoning  Marina  for  a  new  bride ;  watch  his  sun-like 
career  of  brilliant  conquest,  checkered  with  intervals  of 
storm,  and  declining  to  a  death  clouded  with  sorrow  and 
disgrace.     The  life  of  Julius  Caesar  would  fit  as  plausibly 
into  a  scheme  of  solar  myth ;  his  splendid  course  as  in  each 
new  land  he  came,  and  saw,  and  conquered ;  his  desertion 
of  Cleopatra ;  his  ordinance  of  the  solar  year  for  men  ;  his 
death  at  the  hand  of  Brutus,  like  Sifrit's  death  at  the  band 
of  Hagen  in  the  Nibelungen  Lied ;  his  falling  pierced  with 


//// 


^1 


320 


MYTHOLOGY. 


i 

r 


r. 
Mi 

I 

ft 

I  i 


».t 


m 

m  m 


'if;':''; 

'ii!h 


\ 


many  bleeding  wounds,  and  shrouding  himself  in  his  cloak 
to  die  in  darkness.  Of  Ccesar,  better  than  of  Cassius  his 
slayer,  it  might  have  been  said  in  the  language  of  sun- 
myth: 

*.  .  .  0  setting  sun, 
As  in  thy  red  rays  thou  dost  sink  to-night, 
So  in  his  red  blood  Cassius'  day  is  set ; 
The  sun  of  Rome  is  set ! ' 

Thus,  in  interpreting  heroic  legend  as  based  on  nature- 
myth,  circumstantial  analogy  must  be  very  cautiously  ap- 
pealed to,  and  at  any  rate  there  is  need  of  evidence  more 
cogent  than  vague  likenesses  between  human  and  cosmic 
life.  Now  such  evidence  is  forthcoming  at  its  strongest  in 
a  crowd  of  myths,  whose  open  meaning  it  would  be  wanton 
incredulity  to  doubt,  so  little  do  they  disguise,  in  name  or 
sense,  the  familiar  aspects  of  nature  which  they  figure  as 
scenes  of  personal  life.  Even  where  the  tellers  of  legend 
may  have  altered  or  forgotten  its  earlier  mythic  meaning, 
there  are  often  sufficient  grounds  for  an  attempt  to  restore 
it.  In  spite  of  change  and  corruption,  myths  are  slow  ii 
lose  all  consciousness  of  their  first  origin ;  as  for  instance, 
classical  literature  retained  enough  of  meaning  in  the  great 
Greek  sun-myth,  to  compel  even  Lemprifere  of  the  Classical 
Dictionary  to  admit  that  Apollo  or  Phoebus  '  is  often  con- 
founded with  the  sun.'  For  another  instance,  the  Greeks 
had  still  present  to  their  thoughts  the  meaning  of  Argos 
Panoptes,  lo's  nundred-eyed,  all-seeing  guard  who  was  slafn 
by  Hermes  and  changed  into  the  Peacock,  for  Macrobius 
writes  as  recognizing  in  him  the  star-eyed  heaven  itself ;  ^ 
even  as  Indra,  the  Sky,  is  in  Sanskrit  the  'thousand- 
eyed  '  (aahasrdksha,  sahasranayana).  In  modern  times  the 
thought  is  found  surviving  or  reviving  in  a  strange  region  of 
language :  whoever  it  was  that  brought  argo  as  a  word  for 
'  heaven '  into  the  Lingua  Furbesca  or  Robbers'  Jargon  of 
Italy ,^  must  have  been  thinking  of  the  starry  sky  watching 

>  Macrob.  *  Saturn.'  i.  19,  12.    See  Eurip.  Phoen.  1116,  &c.  and  Schol. ; 
Welcker,  vol.  i.  p.  336  ;  Max  Muller,  '  Lectures/  vol.  ii.  p.  380. 
'  Francisque- Michel,  '  Argot,'  p.  425. 


a:, 


MYTHOLOOY. 


321 


Q  his  cloak 
Dassius  his 
ge  of  sun- 

ht, 

on  nature- 
itiously  ap- 
dence  more 
and  cosmic 
strongest  in 
I  be  wanton 
in  name  or 
3y  figure  as 
rs  of  legend 
lie  meaning, 
)t  to  restore 
are  slow  (1 
'or  instance, 
in  the  great 
he  Classical 

9  often  con- 
the  Greeks 

ig  of  Argos 

10  was  slain 
Macrobius 

,ven  itself ;  * 
thousand- 
rn  times  the 
ige  region  of 
3  a  word  for 
s'  Jargon  of 
ly  watching 

&c.  and  Scliol. ; 
180. 


him  like  Argus  with  his  hundred  eyes.  The  etymology 
of  names,  moreover,  is  at  once  the  guide  and  safeguard 
of  the  mythologist.  The  obvious  meaning  of  words  did 
much  to  preserve  vestiges  of  plain  sense  in  classic  legend, 
in  spite  of  all  the  efforts  of  the  commentators.  There 
was  no  disputing  the  obvious  facts  that  Helios  was  the 
Sun,  and  Selene  the  Moon ;  and  as  for  Jove,  all  the  non- 
sense of  pseudo-history  could  not  quite  do  away  the  idea 
that  he  was  really  Heaven,  for  language  continued  to  de- 
clare this  in  such  expressions  as  '  sub  Jove  frigido.'  The 
explanation  of  the  rape  of  Persephone,  as  a  nature-myth  of 
the  seasons  and  the  fruits  of  the  earth,  does  not  depend  alone 
on  analogy  of  incident,  but  has  the  very  names  to  prove 
its  reality,  Zeus,  Helios,  Demeter — Heaven,  and  Sun,  and 
Mother  Earth.  Lastly,  in  stories  of  mythic  beings  who  are 
the  presiding  genii  of  star  or  mountain,  tree  or  river,  or 
heroes  and  heroines  actually  metamorphosed  into  such 
objects,  personification  of  nature  is  still  plainly  evident; 
the  poet  may  still  as  of  old  see  Atlas  bear  the  heavens  on  his 
mighty  shoulders,  and  Alpheus  in  impetuous  course  pursue 
the  maiden  j^.rethusa. 

In  a  study  of  the  nature-myths  of  the  world,  it  is  hardly 
practicable  to  start  from  the  conceptions  of  the  very  lowest 
human  tribes,  and  to  work  upwards  from  thence  to  fictions 
of  higher  growth ;  partly  because  our  information  is  but 
meagre  as  to  the  beliefs  of  these  shy  and  seldom  quite  intel- 
ligible folk,  and  partly  because  the  legends  they  possess 
have  not  reached  that  artistic  and  systematic  shape  which 
they  attain  to  among  races  next  higher  in  the  scale.  It 
therefore  answers  better  to  take  as  a  foundation  the 
mythology  of  the  North  American  Indians,  the  South  Sea 
Islanders,  and  other  low-cultured  tribes  who  best  represent 
in  modern  times  the  early  mythologic  period  of  human 
history.  The  survey  may  be  fitly  commenced  by  a 
singularly  perfect  and  purposeful  cosmic  myth  from  New 
Zealand. 

It  seems  long  ago  and  often  to  have  come  into  men's 

VOL.  I.  Y 


:;J 


"■./ 


892 


MYTHOLOQY, 


C": 


r 
I 

V. 


r, 

an 

I 

I 

ti. 

1^ 


minda,  that  tho  overarching  Heaven  and  tho  all-producing 
Earth  are,  as  it  were,  a  Father  and  a  Mother  of  the  world, 
whose  offspring  are  the  living  creatures,  men,  and  beasts, 
and  plants.     !Nowhere,  in  the  telling  of  this  oft-told  tale,  is 
present  nature  veiled  in  more  transparent  personification, 
nowhere  is  the  world's  familiar  daily  life  repeated  with  more 
childlike  simplicity  as  a  story  of  long  past  agea,  than  in  the 
legend  of '  The  Children  of  Heaven  and  Earth '  written  down 
by  Sir  George  Grey  among  the  Maoris  not  twenty  years 
ago.    From  Baugi,  the  Heaven,  and  Papa,  the  Earth,  it  is 
said,  sprang  all  men  and  things,  but  sky  and  earth  clave 
together,  and  darkness  rested  upon  them  and  the  beings 
they  bad  begotten,  till  at  last  their  children  took  counsel 
whether  they  should  rend  apart  their  parents,  or  slay  them. 
Then  Tane-mahuta,  father  of  forests,  said  to  his  five  great 
brethren,  '  It  is  better  to  rend  them  apart,  and  to  let  the 
heaven  stand  far  above  us,  and  the  earth  lie  under  our  feet. 
Let  the  sky  become  as  a  stranger  to  us,  but  the  earth  remain 
close  to   us  as  our  nursing  mother.*     So  Rongo-ma-tane, 
god  and  father  of  the  cultivated  food  of  man,  arose  and 
strove  to  separate  the  heaven  and  the  earth  ;  he  struggled, 
but  in  vain,  and  vain  too  were  the  efforts  of  Tangaroa, 
father  of  fish  and  reptiles,  and  of  Haumia-tikitiki,  father  of 
wild-growing  food,  and  of  Tu-matauenga,  god  and  father 
of  fierce  men.     Then  slow  uprises  Tane-mahuta,  god  and 
father  of  forests,  and  wrestles  with  his  parents,  striving  to 
part  them  with  his  hands  and  arms.     '  Lo,  he  pauses ;  his 
head  is  now  finuly  planted  on  his  mother  the  earth,  his  feet 
he  raises  up  and  rests  against  nis  father  the  skies,  he  strains 
his  back  and  limbs  with  mighty  effort.    Now  are  rent  apart 
Rangi  an(i  Papa,  and  with  cries  and  groans  of  woe  they 
shi'iek  aloud  ....  But  Tane-mahuta  pauses  not ;  far,  far 
beneath  him  he  presses  down  the  earth  ;  far,  far  above  him 
he  thrusts  up   the  sky.'    But  Tawhiri-ma-tea,  father  of 
winds  and  storms,  had  never  consented  that  his  mother 
should  be  torn  from  her  lord,  and  now  there  arose  in  his 
breast  a  fierce  desire  to  war  against  his  brethien.     So  the 


MYTHOLOOY. 


323 


ll-producing 
)f  the  world, 
,  and  beasts, 
-told  talo,  is 
rsonification, 
ed  with  more 
1,  than  in  the 
vritten  down 
wenty  years 
I  Earth,  it  is 
I  earth  clave 
i  the  beings 
took  counsel 
or  slay  them. 
bis  five  great 
nd  to  let  the 
ider  our  feet, 
earth  remain 
ngo-ma-tane, 
arose  and 
he  struggled, 
Tangaroa, 
tiki,  father  of 
and  father 
uta,  god  and 
,  striving  to 
pauses;  his 
larth,  his  feet 
es,  he  strains 
ire  rent  apart 
of  woe  they 
not ;  far,  far 
IT  above  him 
ea,  father  of 
his  mother 
arose  in  his 
ren.     So  the 


Storm-god  rose  and  followed  his  father  to  the  realms  above, 
hurrying  to  the  sheltered  hollows  of  the  boundless  skies,  to 
hide  and  cling  and  nestle  there.     Then  came  forth  his  pro- 
geny, the  mighty  winds,  the  fierce  sijualls,  the  clouds,  dense, 
dark,  fiery,  wildly  drifting,  wildly  bursting ;  and  in  their 
midst  their  father  rushed  upon  his  foe.    Tane-mahuta  and  his 
giant  forests  stood  unconscious  and  unsuspecting  when  the 
raging  hurricane  burst  on  them,  snapping  the  mighty  trees 
across,  leaving  trunks  and  branches  rent  and  torn  upon  the 
ground  for  the  insect  and  the  grub  to  prey  on.     Then  the 
father  of  storms  swooped  down  to  lash  the  waters  into 
billows  whose  summits  rose  like  cliffs,  till  Tangaroa,  god  of 
ocean  and  father  of  all  that  dwell  therein,  fled  affrighted 
through  his  seas.     His  children,  Ika-tere,  the  father  of  fish, 
and  Tu-te-wehiwehi,  the  father  of  reptiles,  sought  where 
they  might  escape  for  safety ;  the  father  of  fish  cried,  '  Ho, 
ho,  let  us  all  escape  to  the  sea,'  but  the  father  of  reptiles 
shouted  in  answer, '  Nay,  nay,  let  us  rather  fly  inland/  and 
so  these  creatures  separated,  for  while  the  fish  fled  into  the 
sea,  the  reptiles  sought  safety  in  the  forests  and  scrubs. 
But  the  sea-god  Tangaroa,  furious  that  his   children  the 
reptiles  should  have  deserted  him,  has  ever  since  waged  war 
on  his  brother  Tane  who  gave  them   shelter  in  his  woods. 
Tune  attacks  him  in  return,  supplying  the  offspring  of  his 
brother  Tu-matauenga,  father  of  fierce  men,  with  canoes 
and  spears  and  fish-hooks  made  from  his  trees,  and  with 
nets  woven  from  his  fibrous  plants,  that  they  may  destroy 
withal  the  fish,  the  Sea-gods  childi-en;    and  the   Sea-god 
turns  in  wrath  upon  the  Forest-god,  overwhelms  his  canoes 
with  the  surges  of  the  sea,  sweeps  with  floods  his  trees  and 
houses  into  the  boundless  ocean.     Next  the  god  of  storms 
pushed  on  to  attack  his  brothers  the  gods  and  progenitors 
of  the  tilled  food  and  the  wild,  but  Papa,  the  Earth,  caught 
them  up  and  hid  them,  ai^d  so  safely  were  these  her  children 
concealed  by  their  mother,  that  the  Storm-god  sought  for 
them  in  vain.     So  he  fell  upon  the  last  of  his  brothers,  the 
father  of  fierce  men,  but  him  he  could  not  even  shake. 


Y  a 


324 


MYTHOLOOY. 


>   fc, 


though  he  put  forth  all  his  strength.  What  cared  Tu- 
matauenga  for  his  brother's  wrath?  He  it  was  who  had 
planned  the  destruction  of  their  parents,  and  had  shown 
himself  brave  and  fierce  in  war ;  his  brethren  had  yielded 
before  the  tremendous  onset  of  the  Storm-god  and  his  pro- 
geny; the  Forest-god  and  his  offspring  had  been  broken 
and  torn  in  pieces ;  the  Sea-god  and  his  children  had  fled  to 
the  depths  of  the  ocean  or  the  recesses  of  the  shore; 
the  gods  of  food  had  been  safe  in  hiding;  but  Man  still 
stood  erect  and  unshaken  upon  the  bosom  of  his  mother 
Earth,  and  at  last  the  hearts  of  the  Heaven  and  the  Storm 
became  tranquil,  and  their  passion  was  assuaged. 

But  now  Tu-matauenga,  father  of  fierce  men,  took  thought 
how  he  might  be  avenged  upon  his  brethren  who  had  left 
him  unaided  to  stand  against  the  god  of  storms.  He  twisted 
nooses  of  the  leaves  of  the  whanake  tree,  and  the  birds  and 
beasts,  children  of  Tane  the  Forest-god,  fell  before  him ;  he 
netted  nets  from  the  flax -plant,  and  dragged  ashore  the  fish, 
the  children  of  Tangaroa  the  Sea-god;  he  found  in  their 
hiding-place  underground  the  children  of  Kongo-ma- tane, 
the  sweet  potato  and  all  cultivated  food,  and  the  children  of 
Haumia-tikitiki,  the  fern-root  and  all  wild-growing  food,  he 
dug  them  up  and  let  them  wither  in  the  sun.  Yet,  though 
he  overcame  his  four  brothers,  and  they  became  his  food, 
over  the  fifth  he  could  not  prevail,  and  Tawhiri-ma-tea,  the 
Storm-god,  still  ever  attacks  him  in  tempest  and  hurricane, 
striving  to  destroy  him  both  by  sea  and  land.  It  was  the 
bursting  forth  of  the  Storm-god's  wrath  against  his  brethren 
that  caused  the  dry  land  to  disappear  beneath  the  waters : 
the  beings  of  ancient  days  who  thus  submerged  the  land 
were  Terrible-rain,  Long- continued-rain,  Fierce-hailstorms  ; 
and  their  progeny  were  Mist,  and  Heavy-dew,  and  Light- 
dew,  and  thus  but  little  of  the  dry  land  was  left  standing 
above  the  sea.  Then  clear  light  increased  in  the  world,  and 
the  beings  who  had  been  hidden  between  Kangi  and  Papa 
before  they  were  pai-ted,  now  multiplied  upon  the  earth. 
'  Up  to  this  time  the  vast  Heaven  has  still  ever  remained 


MYTHOLOGY. 


325 


cared  Tu- 
i  who  had 
lad  shown 
ad  yielded 
id  his  pro- 
3en  broken 
had  fled  to 
the  shore; 
t  Man  still 
his  mother 
[  the  Storm 
L. 

)ok  thought 
ho  had  left 
He  twisted 
e  birds  and 
)re  him ;  he 
lore  the  fish, 
nd  in  their 
^o-ma-tane, 
children  of 
ing  food,  he 
Yet,  though 
le  his  food, 
■ma-tea,  the 
1  hurricane. 
It  was  the 
lis  brethren 
the  waters : 
ed  the  land 
lailstorms  ; 
and  Light- 
ift  standing 
world,  and 
and  Papa 
the  earth, 
ir  romamed 


separated  from  his  spouse  the  Earth.  Yet  their  mutual 
love  still  continues;  the  soft  warm  sighs  of  her  loving 
bosom  still  ever  rise  up  to  him,  ascending  from  the  woody 
mountains  and  valleys,  and  men  call  these  mists ;  and  the 
vast  Heaven,  as  he  mourns  through  the  long  nights  his 
separation  from  his  beloved,  drops  frequent  tears  upon  her 
bosom,  and  men  seeing  these  term  them  dew-drops.'  ^ 

The  rending  asunder  of  heaven  and  earth  is  a  far-spread 
Polynesian  legend,  well  known  in  the  island  groups  that 
lie  away  to  the  north-east.''  Its  elaboration,  however,  into 
the  myth  here  sketched  out  was  probably  native  New 
Zealand  work.  Nor  need  it  be  supposed  that  the  par- 
ticular form  in  which  the  English  governor  took  it  down 
among  the  Maori  priests  and  tale-tellers,  is  of  ancient  date. 
The  story  carries  in  itself  evidence  of  an  antiquity  of 
character  which  does  not  necessarily  belong  to  mere  lapse 
of  centuries.  Just  as  the  adzes  of  polished  jade  and  the 
cloaks  of  tied  flax-fibre,  which  these  New  Zealanders  were 
using  but  yesterday,  are  older  in  their  place  in  history  than 
the  bronze  battle-axes  and  linen  mummy  cloths  of  ancient 
Egypt,  so  the  Maori  poet's  shaping  of  nature  into  nature- 
myth  belongs  to  a  stage  of  intellectual  history  which  was 
passing  away  in  Greece  five-and -twenty  centuries  ago. 
The  myth-maker's  fancy  of  Heaven  and  Earth  as  father 
and  mother  of  all  things  naturally  suggested  the  legend 
that  they  in  old  days  abode  together,  but  have  since  been 
torn  asunder.  In  China  the  same  idea  of  the  universal 
parentage  is  accompanied  by  a  similar  legend  of  the  separa- 
tion. Wb  ether  or  not  there  is  historical  connexion  here 
between  the  mythology  of  Polynesia  and  China,  I  will  not 
guess,  but  certainly  the  ancient  Chinese   legend  of  the 

•  Sir  G.  Grey,  '  Polynesian  Mythology,'  p.  i.  &c.,  translated  from  the 
original  Maori  text  published  by  him  under  the  title '  Ko  nga  Mahinga  a  nga 
Tupuna  Maori,  &c.'  London,  1854.  Compare  with  Shortland,  'Trads.  of  N. 
Z.'  p.  55,  &c. ;  R.  Taylor,  '  New  Zealand,'  p.  114,  *c. 

"  Schirren,  '  Wandersagen  der  Neuseelander,  &c.'  p.  42  ;  Ellis,  '  Polyn. 
Res.'  vol.  i.  p.  116  ;  Tyerman  and  Bennet,  p.  526 ;  Turner,  '  Polynesia." 
p.  245. 


hi  i 


326 


MYTHOLOGY. 


/ 


separation  of  heaven  and  earth  in  the  primaeval  days  of 
Puang-Ku  seems  to  have  taken  the  very  shape  of  the 
Polynesian  myth:  'Some  say  a  person  called  i  uang-Ku 
opened  or  separated  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  they  pre- 
viously being  pressed  down  close  together.'^  As  to  the 
mythic  details  in  the  whole  story  of  '  The  Children  of 
Heaven  and  Earth,'  there  is  scarcely  a  thought  that  is  not 
still  transparent,  scarcely  even  a  word  that  has  lost  its 
meaning  to  us.  The  broken  and  stiffened  traditions  which 
our  fathers  fancied  relics  of  ancient  history  are,  as  has  been 
truly  said,  records  of  a  past  which  was  never  present ;  but 
the  simple  nature-myth,  as  we  find  it  in  its  actual  growth, 
or  reconstruct  it  from  its  legendary  remnants,  may  be 
rather  called  the  record  of  a  present  which  is  never  past. 
The  battle  of  the  storm  against  the  forest  and  the  ocean 
is  still  waged  before  our  eyes ;  we  still  look  upon  the  victory 
of  man  over  the  creatures  of  the  land  and  sea;  the  ^(^'^f^- 
plants  still  hide  in  their  mother  earth,  and  the  fish  m  1 
reptiles  find  shelter  in  the  ocean  and  the  thicket ;  bu ,  ^n^ 
mighty  forest-trees  stand  with  their  roots  firm  planted  in 
the  ground,  while  with  their  branches  they  push  up  and  up 
against  the  sky.  And  if  we  have  learnt  the  secret  of  man's 
thought  in  the  childhood  of  his  race,  we  may  still  realize 
with  the  savage  the  personal  being  of  the  ancestral  Heaven 
and  Earth. 

The  idea  of  the  Earth  as  a  mother  is  more  simple  and 
obvious,  and  no  doubt  for  that  reason  more  common  in  the 
world,  than  the  idea  of  the  Heaven  as  a  father.  Among 
the  native  races  of  America  the  Earth-mother  is  one  of  the 
great  personages  of  mythology.  The  Peruvians  worshipped 
her  as  Mama-Pacha  or '  Mother-Earth,'  and  the  Caribs,  when 
there  was  an  earthquake,  said  that  it  was  their  mother 
Eart.h  dancing,  and  signifying  to  them  to  dance  and  make 
merry  likewise,  which  accordingly  they  did.  Among  the 
North-American  Indians  the  Comanches  call  on  the  Earth 

'  Premare  in  Pauthier,  '  Livres  Sacr6s  de  I'Orient,'  p.  19 ;  Doolittle, 
'  Chinese.'  vol.  ii.  p.  396. 


al  days  of 
ipe  of  the 
i  uang-Ku 
,  they  pre- 
As  to  the 
ihildren  of 
that  is  not 
as  lost  its 
ions  which 
Ls  has  been 
esent ;  but 
lal  growth, 
;s,  may  be 
lever  past. 

the  ocean 
the  victory 
;  the  ''v^f^- 
le  fish  M  i 
3t ;  bu ,  oi^ 
planted  in 

up  and  up 
et  of  man's 
jtill  realize 
ral  Heaven 

jimple  and 
mon  in  the 
Among 
one  of  the 
vorshipped 
iribs,  when 
eir  mother 

and  make 
Lmong  the 

the  Earth 

9  ;   Doolittle, 


r. 


MYTHOLOaY. 


327 


as  their  mother,  and  the  Great  Spirit  as  their  father.  A 
story  told  by  Gregg  shows  a  somewhat  different  thought 
of  mythic  parentage.  General  Harrison  once  called  the 
Shawnee  chief  Tecumseh  for  a  talk : — '  Come  here,  Te- 
cumseh,  and  sit  by  your  father ! '  he  said.  •  You  my 
father ! '  replied  the  chief,  with  a  stern  air.  '  No !  yonder 
sun  (pointing  towards  it)  is  my  father,  and  the  earth  is  my 
mother,  so  I  will  rest  on  her  bosom,'  and  he  sat  down  on 
the  ground.  Like  this  was  the  Aztec  fancy,  as  it  seems 
from  this  passage  in  a  Mexican  prayer  to  Tezcatlipoca, 
offered  in  time  of  war :  '  Be  pleased,  O  our  Lord,  that  the 
nobles  who  shall  die  in  the  war  be  peacefully  and  joyously 
received  by  the  Sun  and  the  Earth,  who  are  the  loving 
father  and  mother  of  all.'  ^  In  the  mythology  of  Finns, 
Lapps,  and  Esths,  Earth-Mother  is  a  divinely  honoured 
personage.^  Through  the  mythology  of  our  own  country 
the  same  thought  may  be  traced,  from  the  days  when  the 
Anglo-Saxon  called  upon  the  Earth,  'H^l  wes  thu  folde, 
fira  modor,'  '  Hail  thou  Earth,  men's  mother,'  to  the  time 
when  mediaeval  Englishmen  made  a  riddle  of  her,  asking 
'Who  is  Adam's  mother?'  and  poetry  continued  what 
mythology  was  letting  fall,  when  Milton's  archangel  pro- 
mised Adam  a  life  to  last 

*.  .  .  •  till  like  ripe  fruit,  thou  drop 
Into  thy  mother's  lap.'* 

Among  the  Aryan  race,  indeed,  there  stands,  wide  and 
firm,  the  double  myth  of  the  '  two  great  parents,'  as  the 
Rig-Veda  calls  them.  They  are  Dyaushpitar,  Zei/s  irar^p, 
Jupiter,  the  '  Heaven- father,'  and  Prthivi  mdtar,  the 
'  Earth-mother ; '  and  their  relation  is  still  kept  in  mind 
in  the  ordinance  of  Brahman  marriage  according  to  the 

»  J.  G.  Muller,  '  Amer.  Urrelig."  pp.  108,  110,  117,  221,  369,  494,  620 ; 
Rivero  and  Tschudi,  '  Ant.  of  Peru,'  p.  161 ;  Gregg,  '  Journal  of  a  Santa  Ft3 
Trader,'  vol.  ii.  p.  237  ;  Sahagun, '  Retorica,  &c.,  Mexicana,'  cap.  3 ,  in  Kings- 
borough,  '  Ant.  of  Mexico,'  vol.  v. 

"  Gastrin,  '  Finn.  Myth,'  p.  86. 

'  Grimm,  '  D.  M.'  pp.  xix.  229-33,  608  ;  Halliwell,  '  Pop.  Rhymes,'  p.  153  ; 
MiltoHj  '  Paradise  Lost,'  is.  273,  i.  535  :  see  Lucretius,  i.  250. 


% 


1  t 


,•«  ■ 

A 

si  J 


'im^'V' 


828 


MYTHOLOGY. 


I' 


'f» 


K 


i 

•hi 


•  «  vi 

t\. 

fr- 

' 

«!.:.» 

C, 

:     «i       ; 

r, 

Yajur-Veda,  where  the  bridegroom  saye  to  the  bx-r"*:,  *  I 
am  the  sky,  thou  art  the  earth,  come  let  us  'aarry/ 
When  Groek  poets  called  Ouranos  and  Gaia,  or  Zeus  and 
Demeter,  husband  and  wife,  what  they  meant  was  the  union 
of  Heaven  and  Earth  ;  and  when  Plato  said  that  the  earth 
brought  forth  men,  but  God  was  their  shaper,  the  same  old 
mythic  thought  must  have  been  present  to  his  mind.^  It 
re-appears  in  ancient  Sey thia ;  '■^  and  again  in  China,  where 
Heaven  and  Earth  are  called  in  the  Shu-King  '  Father  and 
Mother  of  all  things.'  Chinese  philosophy  naturally  worked 
this  idea  into  the  scheme  of  the  two  great  principles  of 
naiure,  the  Yn  and  Yang,  male  and  female,  heavenly  and 
earthly,  and  from  this  disposition  of  nature  they  drew  a 
practical  moral  lesson:  Heaven,  said  the  philosophers  of 
the  Sung  dynasty,  made  man,  and  Earth  made  woman^ 
and  therefore  woman  is  to  be  subject  to  man  as  Earth  to 
Heaven.^ 

Entering  next  upon  the  world-wide  myths  of  Sun,  Moon, 
and  Stars,  the  regularity  and  consistency  of  human  imagina- 
tion may  be  fii-st  displayed  in  the  beliefs  connected  with 
eclipses.  It  is  well  known  that  these  phenomena,  to  us 
now  crucial  instances  of  the  exactness  of  natural  laws,  are, 
throughout  th«3  lower  stages  of  civilization,  the  very  embodi- 
ment of  miraculous  disaster.  Among  the  native  races  of 
America  it  is  possible  to  select  a  typical  series  of  myths 
describing  and  explaining,  according  to  the  rules  of  savage 
philosophy,  these  portents  of  dismay.  The  Chiquitos  of 
the  southern  continent  thought  the  Moon  was  hunted 
across  the  sky  by  huge  dogs,  who  caught  and  tore  her  till 
her  light  was  reddened  and  quenched  by  the  blood  flowing 
from  her  wounds,  and  then  the  Indians,  raising  a  frightful 

'  Pictet,  'Origineslndo-Europ.'  part  ii.  pp.  663-7  ;  Colebrooke,  'Essiiys,' 
vol.  i.  p.  220.  Plato,  Repub.  iii.  414-5;  '^  7^  avroiis  /i^TT}p  ovoa  dvfjht— 
dAX'  6  0fds  TrAoTTwy.' 

»  Herod,  iv.  59. 

^  Plath,  'Religion  der  alten  Chinesen,'  part  i.  p.  37  ;  Davis,  'Chinese,' 
vol.  ii.  p.  64  ;  Legge, '  Confucius,'  p.  106  ;  Bastian,  '  Mensch,'  vol.  ii.  p.  437, 
vol.  iii.  p.  302. 


MYTHOLOGY. 


329 


he  h^.^f,  -I 
us  'Qarry/ 
or  Zeus  and 
7&S  the  union 
bat  the  earth 
the  same  old 
s  mind.^  It 
China,  where 

'  Father  and 
rally  worked 
principles  of 
leavenlv  and 
they  drew  a 
ilosophers  of 
lade  woman, 

as  Earth  to 

f  Sun,  Moon, 

aan  imagina- 

anf^cted  with 

mena,  to  us 

ral  laws,  are, 

very  embodi- 

ive  races  of 

es  of  myths 

es  of  savage 

Jhiquitos  of 

was  hunted 

)ore  her  till 

ood  flowing 

a  frightful 

•ooke,  'Esanys,' 
p  ovaa  dvrjhf— 


vis,  'Chinese,' 
vol.  ii.  p.  437, 


howl  and  lamentation,  would  shoot  across  into  the  sky  to 
drive  the  monsters  off.  The  Caribs,  thinking  that  the 
demon  Maboya,  hater  of  all  light,  was  seeking  to  devour 
the  Sun  and  Moon,  would  dance  and  howl  in  concert  all 
night  long  to  scare  him  away.  The  Peruvians,  imagining 
such  an  evil  spirit  in  the  shape  of  a  monstrous  beast,  raised 
the  like  frightful  din  when  the  Moon  was  eclipsed,  shout- 
ing, sounding  musical  instruments,  and  beating  the  dogs 
to  join  their  howls  to  the  hideous  chorus.  Nor  are  such 
ideas  extinct  in  our  own  days.  In  the  Tupi  language,  the 
proper  description  of  a  solar  eclipse  is  '  oarasu  jaguarete 
v&,'  that  is,  '  Jaguar  has  eaten  Sun ; '  and  the  full  mean- 
ing of  this  phrase  is  displayed  by  tribes  who  still  shout  and 
let  fly  burning  arrows  to  drive  the  devouring  beast  from  his 
prey.  On  the  northern  continent,  again,  some  savages 
believed  in  a  great  sun-swallowing  dog,  while  others  would 
shoot  up  arrows  to  defend  their  luminaries  against  the 
enemies  they  fancied  attacking  them.  By  the  side  of  these 
prevalent  notions  there  occur,  however,  various  others ; 
thus  the  Caribs  could  imagine  the  eclipsed  Moon  hungry, 
sick,  or  dying ;  the  Peruvians  could  fancy  the  Sun  angry 
and  hiding  his  face,  and  the  sick  Moon  likely  to  fall  in 
total  darkness,  and  bring  on  the  end  of  the  world ;  the 
Hurons  thought  the  Moon  sick,  and  ex^Hined  their 
customary  charivari  of  shouting  men  and  howling  dogs  as 
performed  to  recover  her  from  her  complaint.  Passing 
on  from  these  most  primitive  conceptions,  it  appears  that 
natives  of  both  South  and  North  America  fell  upon  philo- 
sophic myths  somewhat  nearer  the  real  facts  of  the  case, 
insomuch  as  they  admit  that  the  Sun  and  Moon  cause 
eclipses  of  one  another.  In  Cumana,  men  thought  that 
the  wedded  Sun  and  Moon  quarrelled,  and  that  one  of  them 
was  wounded  ;  and  the  Ojibwas  endeavoured  by  tumultuous 
noise  to  distract  the  two  from  such  a  conflict.  The  couise 
of  progressive  science  went  far  beyond  this  among  the 
Aztecs,  who,  as  part  of  their  remarkable  astronomical 
knowledge,  seem,  to  have  had  an  idea  of  the  real  cause  of 


•i 


f» 


330 


MYTHOLOGY. 


I' 

p.Y.;. 

; 

I ' . 

)-; 

».  .■; 

f 

i'.. 

k 

ii 

V 

IS." 

at 
m 

I 

IK 
It- 

I 

-Is;' 


ecli^  '=<es,  but  who  kept  up  a  relic  of  the  old  belief  by  con- 
tinuing to  speak  in  mythologic  phrase  of  the  Sun  and  Moon 
being  eaten.^  Elsewhere  in  the  lower  culture,  there  prevailed 
similar  mythic  conceiptions.  In  the  South  Sea  Islands, 
some  svpposed  the  Sun  and  Moon  to  be  swallowed  by  an 
offended  deity,  whom  they  therefore  induced,  by  liberal 
offerings,  to  eject  the  luminaries  from  his  stomach.'^  In 
Sumatra  we  have  the  comparatively  scientific  notion  that 
an  eclipse  has  to  do  with  the  action  of  Sun  and  Moon  on 
one  another,  and,  accordingly,  they  make  a  loud  noise  with 
sounding  instruments  to  prevent  the  one  from  devouring 
the  other.^  So,  in  Africa,  there  may  be  found  both  the 
rudest  theory  of  the  Eclipse-monster,  and  the  more  ad- 
vanced conception  that  a  solar  eclipse  is  '  the  Moon  catching 
the  Sun.'* 

It  is  no  cause  for  wonder  that  an  aspect  of  the  heavens  so 
awful  as  an  eclipse  should  in  times  of  astronomic  ignorance 
have  dlled  men's  minds  with  terror  of  a  coming  destruction 
of  the  world.  It  may  help  us  still  to  realize  this  thought  if 
we  consider  how,  as  Calmet  pointed  out  many  years  ago,  the 
prophet  Joel  adopted  the  plainest  words  of  des'^^ription  of 
the  solar  and  lunar  eclipse, '  The  sun  shall  be  turned  into 
darkness,  and  the  moon  into  blood  ; '  nor  could  the  thought 
of  any  catastrophe  of  nature  have  brought  his  hearers  face 
to  face  with  a  more  lurid  and  awful  picture.  But  to  our 
minds,  now  that  the  eclipse  has  long  passed  from  the  realm 
of  mythology  into  the  realm  of  science,  such  words  can 
carry  but  a  feeble  glimmer  of  their  early  meaning.     The 

>  J.  G.  Muller,  '  Amer.  Urrelig.'  pp.  53,  219,  231,  255,  395,  420  ;  Martius, 
'  Ethnog.  Amer.'  vol.  i.  pp.  32i),  467,  585,  vol.  ii.  p.  109  ;  Southey,  'Brazil,' 
vol.  i.  p.  352,  vol.  ii.  p.  371  ;  De  la  Borde,  *  Caraibes,'  p.  525  ;  Dobrizhoflfer, 
'  Abipones,'  vol.  ii.  p.  84  ;  Smith  and  Lowe,  'Journey  from  Lima  to  Para,' 
p.  230  ;  Schoolcraft,  'Indian  Tribes  of  N.  A,'  part  i.  p.  271  ;  Charlevoix, 
'  Nouv.  France.'vol.  vi.  p.  149  ;  Ci'anz,  'Gri>nland,'p.  295  ;  Baiitian,'Mensch,' 
vol.  iii.  p.  191  ;  'Early  Hist  of  Mankind,'  p.  163. 

»  Ellis,  '  Polyn.  Res.'  vol.  i.  p.  331. 

'  Marsden,  'Sumatra,' p.  194. 

*  Grant  in  '  Tr.  Eth.  Soc'  vol.  iii.  p.  90  ;  KOlle,  '  Kanuri  Proverbs,  &c.' 
p.  207. 


lief  by  con- 
n  and  Moon 
re  prevailed 
Sea  Islands, 
awed  by  an 
,  by  liberal 
imach.'^  In 
notion  that 
id  Moon  on 
i  noise  with 
a  devouring 
ad  both  the 
le  more  ad- 
)on  catching 

9  heavens  so 
ic  ignorance 
;  destruction 
is  thought  if 
ears  ago,  the 
esi'',ription  of 

urned  into 

ihe  thought 
hearers  face 

But  to  our 
Oft  the  realm 

words  can 
The 


MYTHOLOGY. 


331 


mmg. 


420 ;  Martius, 
ithey,  'Brazil,' 
Dobrizhoffer, 
Lima  to  Para,' 
Charlevoix, 
tian,'Men9ch,' 


Proverbs,  &c.' 


ancient  doctrine  of  the  eclipse  has  not  indeed  lost  its  whole 
interest.  To  trace  it  upward  from  its  early  savage  stages 
to  the  period  when  astronomy  claimed  it,  and  to  follow  the 
course  of  the  ensuing  conflict  over  it  between  theology  and 
science — end.  1  among  ourselves  but  still  being  sluggishly 
fought  out  among  leos  cultured  nations — this  is  to  lay  open 
a  chapter  of  the  history  of  opinion,  from  which  the  student 
who  looks  forward  as  well  as  back  may  lea^n  grave 
lessons. 

There  is  reason  to  consider  most  or  all  civilized  nations 
to  have  started  from  the  myth  of  the  Eclipse-monster  in 
forms  as  savage  as  those  of  the  New  World.  It  prevails 
still  among  the  great  Asiatic  nations.  The  Hindus  say 
that  the  demon  Rahu  insinuated  himself  among  the  gods, 
and  obtained  a  portion  of  the  amrita,  the  drink  of  immor- 
tality ;  Vishnu  smote  off  the  now  immortal  head,  which 
still  pursues  the  Sun  and  Moon  whose  watchful  gaze 
detected  his  presence  in  the  divine  assembly.  Another 
version  of  the  mj  th  is  that  there  are  two  demons,  ES.hu 
and  Ketu,  who  devour  Sun  and  Moon  respectively,  and  who 
are  described  in  conformity  with  the  phenomena  of  eclipses, 
Rahu  being  black,  and  Ketu  red;  the  usual  charivari  is 
raised  by  the  populace  to  drive  them  off,  though  indeed, 
as  their  bodies  have  been  cut  off  at  the  neck,  their  prey 
must  of  natural  course  slip  out  as  soon  as  swallowed.  Or 
R^hu  and  Ketu  are  the  head  and  body  of  the  dissevered 
demon,  by  which  conception  the  Eclipse-monster  is  most 
ingeniously  adapted  to  advanced  astronomy,  the  head  and 
tail  being  identified  with  the  ascending  and  descending 
nodes.  The  following  remarks  on  the  eclipse-controversy, 
made  by  Mr  Samuel  Davis  eighty  years  ago  in  the 
Asia  tick  Researches,  are  still  full  of  interest.  '  It  is  ovident, 
from  what  has  been  explained,  that  the  Piindits,  learned  in 
the  Jyotish  shastrtl,  have  truer  notions  of  the  form  of 
earth  and  the  economy  of  the  universe  than  are  ascribed 
to  the  Hindoos  in  general:  and  that  they  must  reject 
the    ridiculous    belref   of   the   "ommon    BrahmSns,   that 


II 


;  ,i 


882 


MYTHOLOaY. 


m  ^^!! 


'If! 


I: 


m 
I 

I 

I). 

Ik    ; 


eclipses  are  occasioned  by  the  intervention  of  the  monster 
Rahoo,  with  many  other  particulars  equally  unscientific 
and  absurd.  But  as  this  belief  is  founded  on  explicit  and 
positive  declarations  contained  in  the  v^dtls  and  pooranfis, 
the  divine  authority  of  which  writings  no  devout  Hindoo 
can  dispute,  the  astronomers  have  some  of  them  cautiously 
explained  such  passages  in  those  writings  as  disagree  with 
the  principles  of  their  own  science:  and  where  recon- 
ciliation was  impossible,  have  apologized,  as  well  as  they 
could,  for  propositions  necessarily  established  in  the 
practice  of  it,  by  observing,  that  certain  things,  as  stated 
in  other  shastrtis,  might  have  been  so  formerly,  and  may 
be  so  still ;  but  for  astronomical  prrposes,  astronomical 
rules  must  be  followed.'  ^  It  is  not  easy  to  give  a  more 
salient  example  than  this  of  the  consequence  of  investing 
philosophy  with  the  mantle  of  religion,  and  allowing 
priests  and  scribes  to  convert  the  childlike  science  of  an 
early  age  into  the  sacred  dogma  of  a  late  one.  Asiatic 
peoples  under  Buddhist  influence  show  the  eclipse-myth 
in  its  different  stages.  The  rude  Mongols  make  a  clamour 
of  rough  music  to  drive  the  attacking  Aracho  (Rahu)  from 
Sun  or  Moon.  A  Buddhist  version  mjntioned  by  Dr. 
Bastian  describes  Indra  the  Heaven-god  pursuing  Rahu 
with  his  thunderbolt,  and  ripping  open  his  belly,  ro  that 
although  he  can  swallow  the  heavenly  bodies.  Kg  lets  them 
slip  out  agajn  ^  The  more  civilized  nations  of  South-East 
Asia,  accepting  the  eclipse-demons  Rahu  and  Ketu,  were  not 
quite  staggered  in  their  belief  by  the  foreigners'  power  of 
foretelling  eclipses,  nor  even  by  learning  roughly  to  do  the 
same  themselves.  The  Chinese  have  official  announcement 
of  an  eclipse  duly  made  beforehand,  and  then  proceed  to 
encounter  the  ominous   monster,   when    he    comes,   with 


'  H.  H.  Wilson,  'Vishnupurana,'  pp.  78, 140  ;  Skr.  Die.  s.  v.  r4hu  ;  Sir 
W.  Jones  in  *  As.  Bes.'  vol.  ii.  p.  290  ;  S.  Davis,  ibid.,  p.  258  ;  Pictet,  '  Ori- 
gines  Indo-Europ.,'  part  ii.  p.  584  ;  Roberts,  'Oriental  Illustrations,'  p.  7  ; 
Hardy,  '  Manual  of  Buddhism.' 

»  Gastrin,  '  Finn.  Myth.'  p.  63  ;  Bastian,  '  Oestl.  Asien,'  voL  ii.  p.  344. 


m 


■  the  monster 

y  unscientific 

I  explicit  and 

ind  poorantis, 

3vout  Hindoo 

3ra  cautiously 

disagree  with 

where  recon- 

well  as  they 

Lshed    in    the 

Qgs,  as  stained 

;rly,  and  may 

astronomical 

give  a  more 

3  of  investing 

and    allowing 

science  of  an 

one.    Asiatic 

eclipse-myth 

ke  a  clamour 

)  (RS.hu)  from 

oned  by   Dr. 

irsuing  KShu 

belly,  fio  that 

ho  lets  them 

South-East 

etu,  were  not 

ers'  power  of 

ily  to  do  the 

nnouncement 

n  proceed  to 

comes,   with 


s.  V.  rAhu  ;  Sir 
58  ;  Pictet,  '  Ori- 
istrationa,'  p.  7  ; 

vol.  ii.  p.  344. 


MYTHOLOOY. 


333 


gongs  and  bells  and  the  regularly  appointed  prayers. 
Travellers  of  a  century  or  two  ago  relate  curious  details 
of  such  combined  belief  in  the  dragon  and  the  almanac, 
culminating  in  an  ingenious  argument  to  account  for  the 
accuracy  of  the  Europeans'  predictions.  These  clever 
people,  the  Siamese  said,  know  the  monsters  mealtimes, 
and  can  tell  how  hungry  he  will  be,  that  is,  how  large  an 
eclipse  will  be  required  to  satisfy  him.^ 

In  Europe  popular  mythology  kept  up  ideas,  either  of  a 
fight  of  sun  or  moon  with  celestial  enemies,  or  of  the 
moon's  fainting  or  sickness ;  and  especially  remnants  of 
such  archaic  belie*'  are  manifested  in  the  tumultuous 
clamour  raised  in  defence  or  encouragement  of  the  afflicted 
luminary.  The  Romans  flung  firebrand?  into  the  air,  and 
blew  trumpets,  and  clanged  brazen  pots  and  pans,  'labor- 
anti  succurrere  lunae.'  Tacitus,  relating  the  story  of  the 
soldiers'  mutiny  against  Tiberius,  tells  how  their  plan  was 
frustrated  by  the  moon  suddenly  languishing  in  a  clear  sky 
(luna  claro  repente  coelo  visa  languescere) :  in  vain  by  clang 
of  brass  and  blast  of  trumpet  they  strove  to  drive  away  the 
darkness,  for  clouds  came  up  and  covered  all,  and  the  plot- 
ters saw,  lamenting,  that  the  gods  turned  away  from  their 
crime.'^  In  the  period  of  the  conversion  of  Europe,  Chris- 
tian teachers  began  to  attack  the  pagan  superstition,  and 
to  urge  that  men  should  no  longer  clamour  and  cry  'vince 
luna ! '  to  aid  the  moon  in  her  sore  danger ;  and  at  last 
there  came  a  time  when  the  picture  of  the  sun  or  moon  in 
the  diagon's  mouth  became  a  mere  old-fashioned  symbol  to 
represent  eclipses  in  the  calendar,  and  the  saying,  '  Dieu 
garde  la  lune  des  loups'  passed  into  a  mocking  proverb 
against  fear  of  remote  danger.  Yet  the  ceremonial  charivari 
is  mentioned  in  our  own  country  in  the  seventeenth  century  : 

'  Klemm,  '  C.  G.'  vol.  vi.  p.  449  ;  Doolittle,  'Chinese,'  vol.  i.  p.  308  ; 
Turpin,  Kichard,  and  Borri  in  Pinkerton,  vol.  iv.  pp.  579,  72.5,  815  ;  Bastian, 
'  Oestl.  Asien,'  vol.  ii,  p.  109,  vol.  iii.  p.  242.  See  Eisenmenger, '  Entdecktes 
Judenthum,'  vol.  i.  p.  398  (Talmudic  myth). 

'  Plutarch,  de  Facie  in  Orbe  Lunae  ;  Juvenal,  Sat.  vi.  441 ;  Plin.  ii,  9  ; 
Tacit.  Annal.  i,  28. 


.   I 


■■•t*i.:u 


ys  1 


884 


MYTHOLOOY. 


err 


"■' 

f- 

!■' 

'.'i.' 

f 

i"  ■ 

ftv 

p. 

m. 

1- 

C" 

■1  ■ 

;'  ••' 

r. 

f  ■' 

» 

t:. 

« 

I' 

! 

r 

■  *' 

r' 

1 

; .  : 

t), 

k^ 

1 

!!i|i| 


& 


::i:iM 


'The  Irish  or  Welsh  during  eclipses  run  about  beating 
I     kettles  and  pans,  thinking   their  clamour  and  vexations 
/     available  to  the  assistance  of  the  higher  orbes.'     In  1654, 
Nuremberg  went  wild  with  terror  of  an  impending  solar 
eclipse ;  the  markets  ceased,  the  churches  were  crowded 
with  penitents,  and  a  record  of  the  event  remains  in  the 
printed  thanksgiving  which  was  issued  (Danckgebeth  nach 
vergangener  hochstbedrohlich  und  hochschadlicher  Sonnen- 
tinsternuss),  which  gives  thanks  to  the  Almighty  for  grant- 
1  y    ing  to  poor  terrified  sinners  the  grace  of  covering  the  sky 
/        with  clouds,  and  sparing  them  the  sight  of  the  awful  sign  in 
heaven.     In  our  own  times,  a  writer  on  French  folklore  was 
surprised  during  a  lunar  eclipse  to  hear  sighs  and  exclama- 
tions   '  Mon  Dieu,  qu'elle  est  souffrante  I '   and  found  on 
enquiry  that  the  poor  moon  was  believed  to  be  the  prey  of 
some  invisible  monster  seeking  to  devour  her.^    No  doubt 
such  late  survivals  have  belonged  in  great  measure  to  the 
ignorant  crowd,  for  the  educated  classes  of  the  West  have 
never  suffered  in  its  extreme  the   fatal  Chinese  union  of 
scepticism  and  superstition.    Yet  if  it  is  our  mood  to  bewail 
the  slowness  with  which  knowledge  penetr^^os  the  mass  of 
mankind,  there  stand  dismal  proofs  before  us  here.     The 
eclipse  remained  an  omen  of  fear  almost   up  to  our  own 
/      century,  and  could  rout  a  horror-stricken  army,  and   fill 
Europe  with  dismay,  a  thousand    years  after  Pliny  had 
written  in  memorable  words  his  eulogy  of  the  astronomers  ; 
those  great  men,  he  said,  and  above  ordinary  mortals,  who, 
by  discovering  the  laws  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  had  freed  the 
miserable  mind  of  men  from  terror  at  the  portents  of  eclipses. 
Day  is  daily  swallowed  up  by  Night,  to  be  set  free  again 
at  dawn,  and  from  time  to  time  suffers  a  like  but  shorter 
durance  in  the  maw  of  the  Eclipse  and  the  Storm-cloud ; 


»  Grimm,  ',D.  M."  pp.  668-78, 224  ;  Hanusch,  '  Slaw.  Myth.'  p.  268;  Brand, 
'  Pop.  Ant.'  vol.  iii.  p.  152  ;  Horst,  *Zaubor-Bibliothok,'  vol.  iv.  p.  3f)0  ;  D. 
Monnier,  '  Traditions  populaires  comparees,'  p.  138  ;  see  Migne,  *  Die.  des 
Superstitions,' art.  'Eclipse ' ;  Cornelius  Agrippa,  *De  Occulta  Philosophia,' 
ii.  c.  45,  gives  a  picture  of  the  lunar  eclipse-dragon. 


bout,  beating 

bnd  vexations 

S8.'     In  1654, 

pending  solar 

vera  crowded 

smains  in  the 

ikgebeth  nach 

icher  Sonnen- 

bty  for  grant- 

ering  the  sky 

I  awful  sign  in 

li  folklore  was 

and  exclama- 

ind  found  on 

3e  the  prey  of 

v.^    No  doubt 

leasure  to  the 

he  West  have 

nese  union  of 

ood  to  bewail 

s  the  mass  of 

13  here.     The 

to  our  own 

rmy,  and   fill 

sr  Pliny  had 

astronomers ; 

mortals,  who, 

lad  freed  the 

)s  of  eclipses. 

3et  free  again 

but  shorter 

3toi*m-cloud ; 


'p.  268;  Brand, 
1.  iv.  p.  350  ;  D. 
ligrie,  '  Die.  des 
ta  Philosophia,' 


MYTHOLOOY. 


335 


Summer  is  overcome  and  prisoned  by  dark  Winter,  to  be 
again  set  free.  It  is  a  plausible  opinion  that  such  scenes 
from  the  great  nature-drama  of  the  conflict  of  light  and 
darkness  are,  generally  speaking,  the  simple  facts,  which  in 
many  lands  and  ages  have  been  told  in  mythic  shape,  as 
legends  of  a  Hero  or  Maiden  devoured  by  a  Monster,  and 
hacked  out  again  or  disgorged.  The  myths  just  displayed 
show  with  absolute  distinctness,  that  myth  can  describe 
eclipse  as  the  devouring  and  setting  free  of  the  personal  sun 
and  moon  by  a  monster.  The  following  Maori  legend  will 
supply  proof  as  positive  that  the  episode  of  the  Sun's  or  the 
Day's  death  in  sunset  may  be  dramatized  into  a  tale  of  a 
personal  solar  hero  plunging  into  tLj  body  of  the  personal 
Night. 

Maui,  the  New  Zealand  cosmic  hero,  at  the  end  of  his 
glorious  career  came  back  to  his  father's  country,  and  was 
told  that  here,  perhaps,  he  oiight  be  overcome,  for  here  dwelt 
his  mighty  ancestress,  Hine-nui-te-po,  Great-Daughter-of- 
Night,  whom  'you  may  see  flashing,  and  as  it  were  opening 
and  shutting  there,  where  the  horizon  meets  ;he  sky ;  what 
you  see  yonder  shining  so  brightly-red,  are  her  eyes,  and 
her  teeth  are  as  sharp  and  hard  as  pieces  of  volcanic  glass  ; 
her  body  is  like  that  of  t  man  ;  and  as  for  the  pupils  of  her 
eyes,  they  are  jasper ;  and  her  hair  is  like  the  tangles 
of  long  sea-weed,  and  her  mouth  is  like  that  of  a  barra- 
couta.'  Maui  boasted  of  his  former  exploits,  and  said, 
'  Let  us  fearlessly  seek  whether  men  are  to  die  or  live  for 
ever;'  but  his  father  called  to  mind  an  evil  omen,  that 
when  he  was  baptizing  Maui  he  had  left  out  part  of  the  fit- 
ting prayers,  and  therefore  he  knew  that  his  son  must 
perish.  Yet  he  said,  '0,  my  last-born,  and  the  strength 
of  my  old  age,  ...  be  bold,  go  and  visit  your  great 
ancestress,  who  flashes  so  fiercely  there  where  the  edge  of 
the  horizon  meets  the  sky.'  Then  the  birds  came  to  Maui 
to  be  his  companions  in  the  enterprise,  and  it  was  evening 
when  they  went  with  him,  and  they  came  to  the  dwelling  of 
Hine-nui-te-po,  and  found  her  fast  asleep.     Maui  charged 


't* 


386 


MYTHOLOOY. 


C' 

*%«. 

il'in  ; 

r, 

i;iii  1 

r'' 

i;l|) ' 

I-,. 

'i,' 

I 

,!|' 

,!;iii 

V. 

I ., 

'ilil    ; 

« 

i/' 

*■;. 

r, 

■•I.' 

■•'     : 

,':ii 

r. 

'•'■' 

.» 

w. 

1 

• 

*•• 

f 

1            ■'" 

It,                   M 1 

^ 

■' ' 

the  birds  not  to  laugh  when  they  saw  him  creep  into  the  old 
chieftaincBS,  but  when  he  had  got  altogether  inside  her,  and 
was  coming  out  of  her  mouth,  then  they  might  laugh  long 
and  loud.  So  Maui  stripped  off  his  clothes,  and  the  skin 
on  his  hips,  tattooed  by  the  chisel  of  Uetonga,  looked 
mottled  and  beautiful,  like  a  mackerel's,  as  ho  crept  in. 
The  birds  kept  silence,  but  when  he  was  in  up  to  his  waist, 
the  little  tiwakawaka  could  hold  its  laughter  in  no  longer, 
and  burst  out  loud  with  its  merry  note  ;  then  Maui's  ances- 
treea  awoke,  closed  on  him  and  caught  him  tight,  and  ho 
was  killed.  '1  is  died  Maui,  and  thus  death  came  into  the 
world,  for  Hine-nui-te-po  is  the  goddess  both  of  night  and 
death,  and  had  Maui  entered  into  her  body  and  passed 
safely  through  hoi,  men  would  have  died  no  more.  The 
New  Zealanders  hold  that  the  Sun  descends  at  night  into 
his  cavern,  bathes  in  the  Wai  Ora  Tane,  the  Water  of  Life, 
and  returns  at  dawn  from  the  under- world  ;  hence  we  may 
interpret  the  thought  that  if  Man  could  likewise  descend 
into  Hades  and  return,  his  race  would  be  immortal.^ 
Further  evidence  that  Hine-nui-to-po  is  the  deity  of  Night 
or  Hades,  appears  in  another  New  Zealand  myth.  Tane, 
descending  to  the  shades  below  in  pursuit  of  his  wife,  comes 
to  the  Night  (Po)  of  Hine-a-te-po,  Daughter-of-Night,  who 
says  to  him, '  I  have  spoken  thus  to  her  "  Return  from  this 
place,  as  I,  Hine-a-te-po,  am  here.  I  am  the  bari-ier  between 
night  and  day." '  ^    It  is  seldom  that  solar  characteristics  are 

'  Grey,  'Polyn.  Myth.'  pp.  54-58  ;  in  his  Maori  texts,  Ko  nga  Mahinga, 
pp.  28-30,  Ko  nga  Mateatea,  pp.  xlviii-ix.  I  have  to  thank  Sir  G.  Grey  for 
a  more  explicit  and  mythologically  more  consistent  translation  of  the  story 
of  Maui's  entrance  into  the  womb  of  Hino-nui-te-po  and  her  crushing  him 
to  death  between  her  thighs,  than  is  given  in  his  English  version,  Compare 
R.Taylor,  '  New  Zealand,' p.  132;  Schirren,  'Wandersagen  der  Neuseol.' 
p.  33  ;  Shortland,  'Trads.  of  N.  Z.'  p.  63  (a  version  of  tho  myth  of  Maui's 
death 'I  ;  see  also  pp.  171,  180,  and  Baker  in  'Tr.  Eth.  Soc'  vol.  i.  p.  53. 

"  John  White,  'Ancient  History  of  the  Maori,'  vol.  i.  p.  146.  In 
former  editions  a  statement  received  from  New  Zealand  was  inserted, 
that  the  cry  or  laugh  of  tho  tiwakawaka  or  pied  fantail  is  only  heard  at 
sunset.  This,  however,  does  not  agree  with  the  accounts  of  Sir  W. 
Lawry  Buller,  who,  in  his  '  Birds  of  New  Zealand,'  vol.  i.  p.  69,  supple- 
mented by  his  answer  to  my  enquiry,  makes  it  clear  that  the  bird 
sings  in  the  daytime.     Thus  the  argument  connecting  the  sunset-song 


irrrHOLoaT. 


887 


>  into  the  old 
iside  her,  and 
it  laugh  long 
md  the  skin 
onga,  looked 
ho  crept  in. 
to  his  waiBt, 
in  no  longer, 
Maui's  ances- 
iight,  and  ho 
same  into  the 
of  night  and 
^  and  passed 
)  more.     The 
at  night  into 
^ater  of  Life, 
lence  we  may 
wise  descend 
e    immortal.^ 
eity  of  Night 
nyth.    Tane, 
is  wife,  comes 
Night,  who 
irn  from  this 
rrier  between 
,cteri8tic8  are 

o  nga  Maliinga, 
Sir  G.  Grey  for 
tion  of  the  story 
r  crushing  him 
•sion.  Compare 
n  der  Neuseol.' 
myth  of  Maxii's 
vol.  i.  p.  53. 
i.  p.  146.  In 
was  inserted, 
IS  only  heard  at 
ints  of  Sir  W. 
p.  69,  supple - 
that  the  bird 
;he  sunset-song 


more  distinctly  marked  in  the  several  details  of  a  myth 
than  they  are  here. 

In  the  list  of  myths  of  engulphing  monsters,  there  are 
others  which  seem  to  display,  with  a  clearness  almost  ap- 
proaching this,  an  origin  suggested  by  the  familiar  spectacle 
of  Day  and  Night,  or  Light  and  Darkness.  The  simple 
story  of  the  Day  may  well  be  told  in  the  Karen  tale  of  Ta 
Ywa,  who  was  bom  a  tiny  child,  and  went  to  the  Sun  to 
make  him  grow ;  the  Sun  tried  in  vain  to  destroy  him  by 
rain  and  heat,  and  then  blew  him  up  large  till  his  head 
touched  the  sky ;  then  he  went  forth  and  travelled  from  his 
home  far  over  the  earth  ;  and  among  the  adventures  which 
befel  him  was  this — a  snake  swallowed  him,  but  they  ripped 
the  creature  up,  and  Ta  Ywa  came  back  to  lifo,^  like  the 
Sun  from  the  ripped  up  serpent-dtinon  in  die  Buddhist 
eclipse-myth.  In  North  American  Indian  mythology,  a 
principal  personage  is  Manabozho,  an  Alg)nquin  horo  or 
deity  whose  solar  clmiacter  is  well  'a  ight  into  viev.  jq  an 
Ottawa  myth  which  tells  us  that  M  ,nalozho  (whom  it  calls 
Na-na-bou-jou)  is  the  elder  brother  of  Ning-gah-be-ar-nong 
Manito,  the  Spirit  of  the  West,  god  of  the  country  of  the 
dead  in  the  region  of  the  setting  sun.  Manabozho's  solar 
nature  is  again  revealed  in  the  story  of  his  driving  the  West, 
his  father,  across  mountain  and  lake  to  the  brink  of  the 
world,  though  he  cannot  kill  him.  This  sun-hero  Mana- 
bozho, when  he  angled  for  the  King  of  Fishes,  was  swal- 
lowed, canoe  and  all ;  then  he  smote  the  monster's  heart 
with  his  war-club  till  he  would  fain  have  cast  him  up  into 
the  lake  again,  but  the  ht-ro  set  his  canoe  fast  across  the 
fish's  throat  inside,  and  iinished  slaying  him  ;  when  the 
dead  monster  drifted  ashore,  the  gulls  pecked  an  opening 
for  Manabozho  to  cume  out.    This  is  a  story  familiar  to 


vrith  the  story  as  a  sunset-myth  falls  away.  In  another  version  of  Maui's 
death,  in  White,  vol.  ii.  p.  112,  the  laughing  bird  is  the  patatai  or  little 
swamp-rail,  which  cries  at  and  after  nightfall  and  in  the  early  morning 
(BuUor,  vol.  ii.  p.  US).     [Note  to  3rd  od.] 

»  Mason,  '  Karens,'  in  '  Jouru.  As.  Soc.  Bengal,'  1865,  part  ii.  p.  178,  &c. 

VOL.  I.  Z 


\ 


4 


K 


111! 


■'ii 


338 


MYTHOLOGY. 


English  readers  from  its  introduction  into  the  poem  of 
Hiawatha.  In  another  version,  the  tale  is  told  of  the  Little 
Monedo  of  the  Ojibwas,  who  also  corresponds  with  the  New 
Zealand  Maui  in  being  the  Sun-Catcher ;  among  his  various 
prodigies,  he  is  swallowed  by  the  great  fish,  and  cut  out 
again  by  his  sister.^  South  Africa  is  a  region  where  there 
prevail  myths  which  seem  to  tell  the  story  of  the  world  im- 
prisoned in  the  monster  Night,  and  delivered  by  the  dawn- 
ing Sun.  The  Basutos  have  their  myth  of  the  hero  Litao- 
lane ;  he  came  to  man's  stature  and  wisdom  at  his  birth ; 
all  mankind  save  his  mother  and  he  had  been  devoured  by 
a  monster;  he  attacked  the  creature  and  was  swallowed 
whole,  but  cutting  his  way  out  he  set  free  all  the  inhabitants 
of  the  world.  The  Zulus  tell  stories  as  pointedly  suggestive. 
A  mother  follows  her  children  into  the  maw  of  the  great 
elephant,  and  finds  forests  and  rivers  and  highlands,  and 
dogs  and  cattle,  and  people  who  had  built  their  villages 
there ;  a  description  which  is  simply  that  of  the  Zulu 
Hades.  When  the  Princess  Untombinde  was  carried  oflf  by 
the  Isikqukqumadevu,  the  'bloated,  squatting,  bearded 
monster,'  the  King  gathered  his  army  and  attacked  it,  but  it 
swallowed  up  men,  and  dogs,  and  cattle,  all  but  one  warrior ; 
he  slew  the  monster,  and  there  came  out  cattle,  and  horses, 
and  men,  and  last  of  all  the  princess  herself.  The  stories 
of  these  monsters  being  cut  open  imitate,  in  graphic  savage 
fashion,  the  cries  of  the  imprisoned  creatures  as  they  came 
back  from  darkness  into  daylight.  '  There  came  out  first 
a  fowl,  it  said,  "  Kukuluku  I  I  see  the  world  1 "  For,  for  a 
long  time  it  had  been  without  seeing  it.  After  the  fowl 
there  came  out  a  man,  he  said  "  Hau  I  I  at  length  see  the 
world ! " '  and  so  on  with  the  rest.^ 

*  Schoolcraft,  '  Indian  Tribes,'  part  iii.  p.  318  ;  *  Algic  Res.'  vol.  i.  p.  136, 
&c.,  144 ;  John  Tanner,  'Narrati\e,'  p.  357  ;  see  Brinton,  '  Myths  of  New 
World,'  p.  166.  For  legends  of  Sun-Catcher,  see  '  Early  Hist,  of  Mankind,' 
eh.  xii. 

'  Casalis,  'Basutos,'  p.  347  ;  Callaway,  'Zulu Tales,' vol.  i.pp.  56,  69,  84, 
334  (see  also  the  story,  p.  241,  of  the  frog  who  swallowed  the  princess  and 
carried  her  safe  home).  SeeCranz,  p.  271  (Greenland  angekok  swallowed  by 


lie  poem  of 
of  the  Little 
ith  the  New 
y  his  various 
and  cut  out 
where  there 
le  world  im- 
ly  the  dawn- 
hero  Litao- 
it  his  birth; 
devoured  by 
s  swallowed 
)  inhabitants 
y  suggestive, 
of  the  great 
ghlands,  and 
heir  villages 
of  the  Zulu 
sarried  off  by 
y,  bearded 
ked  it,  but  it 
one  warrior ; 
and  horses, 
The  stories 
aphic  savage 
IS  they  came 
ime  out  first 
For,  for  a 
ber  the  fowl 
igth  see  the 


vol.  i.  p.  135, 
Myths  of  New 
it.  of  Mankind,' 

i.pp.  56,  69,  84, 
le  princess  and 
k  swallowed  by 


MYTHOLOGY. 


339 


The  well-known  modern  interpretation  of  the  myth  of 
Perseus  and  Andromeda,  or  of  Herakles  and  Hesione,  as  a 
description  of  the  Sun  slaying  the  Darkness,  has  its  con- 
nexion with  this  group  of  legends.  It  is  related  in  a 
remarkable  version  of  this  story,  that  when  the  Trojan 
King  Laomedon  had  bound  his  daughter  Hesione  to  the 
rock,  a  sacrifice  to  Poseidon's  destroying  sea-monster, 
Herakles  delivered  the  maiden,  springing  full-armed  into 
the  fish's  gaping  throat,  and  coming  forth  hairless  after 
three  days  hacking  within.  This  singular  story,  probably 
in  part  of  Semitic  origin,  combines  the  ordinary  myth  of 
Hesione  or  Andromeda  with  the  story  of  Jonah's  fish,  for 
which  indeed  the  Greek  sculpture  of  Andromeda's  monster 
served  as  the  model  in  early  Christian  art,  while  Joppa  was 
the  place  where  vestiges  of  Andromeda's  chains  on  a  rock  in 
front  of  the  town  were  exhibited  in  Pliny's  time,  and  whence 
the  bones  of  a  whale  were  carried  to  Kome  as  relics  of 
Andromeda's  monster.  To  recognize  the  place  which  the 
nature-myth  of  the  Man  swallowed  by  the  Monster  occupies 
in  mythology,  among  remote  and  savage  races  and  onward 
among  the  higher  nations,  affects  the  argument  on  a  point 
of  Biblical  criticism.  It  strengthens  the  position  of  the 
critics  who,  fieeing  that  the  Book  of  Jonah  consists  of  two 
wonder- episodes  adapted  to  enforce  two  great  religious 
lessons,  no  longer  suppose  intention  of  literal  narrative  in 
what  they  may  fairly  consider  as  the  most  elaborate  parable 
of  the  Old  Testament.  Had  the  Book  of  Jonah  happened 
to  be  lost  in  old  times,  and  only  recently  recovered,  it  is 
indeed  hardly  likely  that  any  other  opinion  of  it  then  this 
would  find  acceptance  among  scholars.^ 

bear  and  walrus  and  thrown  up  again),  and  Bastian,  '  Menseli,'  vol.  ii.  pp. 
606-7  ;  J.  M.  Harris  in  'Mem.  Anthrop  Soo.'  vol.  ii.p.  31  (similar  notions 
in  Africa  and  New  Guinea). 

*  Tzetzes  ap.  Lycophron,  Cassandra,  33.  As  to  connexion  with  Joppa  and 
Phcenicia,  see  Plin.  v.  14 ;  ix.  4  ;  Mela,  i.  11 ;  Strabo,  xvi.  2,  28  ;  Movers, 
PhOni/ier,  vol.  i.  pp.  422-8.  The  expression  in  Jonah,  ii.  2,  '  out  of  the 
belly  of  Hades '  (mibten  sheol,  ix  Koi\las  ^8ow)  seems  a  relic  of  the  original 
meauiiig  of  the  myth. 

Z  2 


/^ 


IP''" 


340 


MYTHOLOGY. 


ii:   'i 


!•• 

%H 

*.  i 

'^\U 

r 

■i|H| 

ft- 

M. ,  ■■ 

;lij' 

r, 

K 

m 

"•i< 

1 

".\" 

» 

B" 

« 

■.     1' 

ll. 

,ll|. 

ki 

'     1 

The  conception  of  Hades  as  a  monster  swallowing  men  in 
death,  was  actually  familiar  to  Christian  thought.  Thus,  to 
take  instances  from  different  periods,  the  account  of  the 
Descent  into  Hades  in  the  Apocryphal  Gospel  of  Nicodemus 
makes  Hades  speak  in  his  proper  personality,  complaining 
that  his  belly  is  in  pain,  when  the  Saviour  is  to  descend  and 
set  free  the  saints  imprisoned  in  it  from  the  beginning  of 
the  world ;  and  in  mediaeval  representations  of  this  deliver- 
ance, the  so-called  '  Harrowing  of  Hell,'  Christ  is  depicted 
standing  before  a  huge  fish-like  monster's  open  jaws,  whence 
Adam  and  Eve  are  coming  forth  first  of  mankind.^  With 
even  more  distinctness  of  mythical  meaning,  the  man- 
devouring  monster  is  introduced  in  the  Scandinavian  Eireks- 
Saga.  Eirek,  journeying  toward  Paradise,  comes  to  a  stone 
bridge  guarded  by  a  dragon,  and  entering  into  its  maw, 
finds  that  he  has  anived  in  the  world  of  bliss.^  But  in 
another  wonder-tale,  belonging  to  that  legendary  growth 
which  formed  round  early  Christian  history,  no  such  dis- 
tinguishable remnant  of  nature-myth  survives.  St.  Margaret, 
daughter  of  a  priest  of  Antioch,  had  been  cast  into  a 
dungeon,  and  there  Satan  came  upon  her  in  the  form  of  a 
dragon,  and  swallowed  her  alive  : 

'Maiden  Mergrele  tho  Loked  her  beside, 
And  sees  a  loathly  dragon,  Out  of  an  him  glide : 
His  eyen  were  full  griesly,  His  mouth  opened  wide, 
And  Margrete  might  no  where  flee  There  she  must  abide, 
Maiden  Margrete  Stood  still  as  any  stone, 
And  that  loathly  worm,  To  her-ward  gan  gone 
Took  her  in  his  foul  mouth,  And  swallowed  her  flesh  and  bone. 
Anon  he  brast — Damage  hath  she  none  ! 
Maiden  Mergrete  Upon  the  dragon  stood ; 
Blyth  was  her  harte,  And  joyful  was  her  mood.'  ^ 

Stories  belonging  to  the  same  group  are  not  unknown  to 


^  '  Apocr.  Gosp.'  Nicodemus,  ch.  xx. ;  Mrs.  Jameson, '  History  of  our  Lord 
in  Art,'  vol.  ii.  p.  258. 

^  Eireks  Saga,  8,  4,  in  '  Flateyjarbok,'  vol.  i.,  Christiania,  1859  ;  Baring 
Gould,  'Myths  of  the  Middle  Ages,'  p.  238. 

^  Mre.  Jameson,  '  Sacrtd  and  Legendary  Art,'  vol.  ii.  p.  138. 


mng  men  in 
it.    Thus,  to 
jount  of  the 
f  Nicodemus 
complaining 
descend  and 
beginning  of 
this  deliver- 
t  is  depicted 
jaws,  whence 
dnd.i    With 
g,  the  man- 
ELvian  Eireks- 
aes  to  a  stone 
Qto  its  maw, 
iss.'^     But  in 
dary  growth 
no  such  dis- 
St.  Margaret, 
cast   into  a 
ihe  form  of  a 


MYTHOLOGY. 


341 


Pe, 

st  abide. 


esh  and  bone. 


unknown  to 

itory  of  our  Lord 
I,  1859  ;  Baring- 
138. 


European  folk-lore.  One  is  the  story  of  Little  Red  Riding- 
hood,  mutilated  in  the  English  nursery  version,  but  known 
more  perfectly  by  old  wives  in  Germany,  who  can  tell  that 
the  lovely  little  maid  in  her  shining  red  satin  cloak  was 
swallowed  with  her  grandmother  by  the  Wolf,  but  they  both 
came  out  safe  and  sound  when  the  hunter  cut  open  the  sleep- 
ing beast.  Any  one  who  can  fancy  with  Prince  Hal,  '  the 
blessed  sun  himself  a  fair  hot  wench  in  flame-coloured 
taffeta,'  and  can  then  imagine  her  swallowed  up  by  SkoU, 
the  Sun-devouring  Wolf  of  Scandinavian  mythology,  may 
be  inclined  to  class  the  tale  of  Little  Red  Ridinghood  as  a 
myth  of  sunset  and  sunrise.  There  is  indeed  another  story 
in  Grimm's  Marchen,  partly  the  same  as  this  one,  which  we 
can  hardly  doubt  to  have  a  quaint  touch  of  sun-myth  in  it. 
It  is  called  the  Wolf  and  Seven  Kids,  and  tells  of  the  wolf 
swallowing  the  kids  all  but  the  youngest  of  the  seven,  who 
was  hidden  in  the  clock-case.  As  in  Little  Red  Riding- 
hood,  they  cut  open  the  wolf  and  fill  him  with  stones.  This 
tale,  which  took  its  present  shape  since  the  invention  of 
clocks,  looks  as  though  the  tale-teller  was  thinking,  not  of 
real  kids  and  wolf,  but  of  days  of  the  week  swallowed  by 
night,  or  how  should  he  have  hit  upon  such  a  fancy  as  that 
the  wolf  could  not  get  at  the  youngest  of  the  seven  kids, 
because  it  was  hidden  (like  to-day)  in  the  clock-case  ?  ^ 

It  may  be  worth  while  to  raise  the  question  apropos  of 
this  nursery  tale,  does  the  peasant  folk-lore  of  modern 
Europe  really  still  display  episodes  of  nature-mytb  not  as 


'  J.  and  W.  Grimm, '  Kinder  and  Hausmarchen,'  vol.  i.  pp.  26, 140 ;  ^  o\iii. 
p.  15.  [See  ref.  to  those  two  stories,  '  Early  Hist,  of  M.'  1st  ed.  (1865)  p.  338. 
I  find  that  Mr.  G.  W.  Cox,  '  Mythology  '  (1870),  vol.  i.  p.  358,  had  noticed  tha 
Wolf  and  Seven  Kids  as  a  myth  of  the  days  of  the  week  (Note  to  2nd  ed.)]. 
For  mentions  of  the  wolf  of  darkness,  see  Hanusch,  p.  192  ;  Edda,  '  Gylfa- 
ginning,'  12  ;  Grimm,  '  D.  M.'  pp.  224,  668.  With  the  episode  of  the  stones 
substituted,  compare  the  myth  of  Zeus  and  Kronos.  For  various  other  stories 
belonging  to  the  group  of  the  Man  swallowed  by  the  Monster,  see  Lucian, 
Historise  Vera?  I. ;  Hardy,  'Manual  of  Buddhism,'  p.  501 ;  Lane,  'Thousand 
and  One  Nights,'  vol.  iii.  p.  104  ;  Halliwell,  '  Pop.  Rhymes,'  p.  98  ;  *  Nursery 


Rhymes,'  p.  48  ;  '  Early  Hist,  of  M; 


Mankind 


-1,   p.  am. 


343 


MYTHOLOGY. 


irS  .  i  I 


m 


mere  broken-down  and  senseless  fragments,  but  in  full  shape 
and  significance  ?  In  answer  it  will  be  enough  to  quote  the 
story  of  Vasilissa  the  Beautiful,  brought  forward  by  Mr,  W. 
Ralston  in  a  recent  lecture  on  Russian  Folk-lore.  Vasilissa's 
stepmother  and  two  sisters,  plotting  against  her  life,  send 
her  to  get  a  light  at  the  house  of  Bdba  Yag^,  the  witch,  and 
her  journey  contains  the  following  history  of  the  Day,  told  I'n 
truest  mythic  fashion.  Vasilissa  goes  and  wanders,  wanders 
in  the  forest.  She  goes,  and  she  shudders.  Suddenly  before 
her  bounds  a  rider,  be  himself  white,  and  clad  in  white,  the 
horse  under  him  white,  and  the  trappings  white.  And  day 
began  to  dawn.  She  goes  farther,  when  a  second  rider  bounds 
forth,  himself  red,  clad  in  red,  and  on  a  red  horse.  The  sun 
began  to  rise.  She  goes  on  all  day,  and  towards  evening 
arrives  at  the  witch's  house.  Suddenly  there  ernes  again  a 
rider,  himself  black,  clad  in  all  black,  and  on  a  black,  horse ; 
he  bounded  to  the  gates  of  the  Bdba  Yag^  and  disappeared  as 
if  he  had  sunk  through  the  earth.  Night  fell.  After  this, 
when  Vasilissa  asks  the  witch,  who  was  the  white  rider,  she 
answers, '  That  is  my  clear  Day ; '  who  was  the  red  rider, 
'  That  is  my  red  Sun  ; '  who  was  the  black  rider,  '  That  is 
my  black  Night ;  they  are  all  my  trusty  friends.'  Now, 
considering  that  the  story  of  Little  Red  Ridinghood  belongs 
to  the  same  class  of  folk-lore  tales  as  this  story  of  Vasilissa 
the  Beautiful,  we  need  not  be  afraid  to  seek  in  the  one  for 
traces  of  the  same  archaic  type  of  nature-myth  which  the 
other  not  only  keeps  up,  but  keeps  up  with  the  fullest 
consciousness  of  meaning. 

The  development  of  nature-myth  into  heroic  legend  seems 
to  have  taken  place  among  the  barbaric  tribes  of  the  South 
Sea  Islands  and  North  America  much  as  it  took  place  among 
the  ancestors  of  the  classic  nations  of  the  Old  World.  We 
are  not  to  expect  accurate  consistency  or  proper  sequence  of 
episodes  in  the  heroic  cycles,  but  to  judge  from  the  charac- 
teristics of  the  episodes  themselves  as  to  the  ideas  which 
suggested  them.  As  regards  the  less  cultured  races,  a 
glance  at  two  legendary  cycles,  one  from  Polynesia  and  the 


1  full  shape 

o  quote  the 

by  Mr.  W. 

Vasilissa's 
^r  life,  send 
)  witch,  and 
Day,  told  :n 
rs,  wauders 
lenly  before 
a  -white,  the 
.     And  day 
•ider  bounds 
e.     The  sun 
rds  evening 
mes  again  a 
black,  horse ; 
3appeared  as 

After  this, 
ite  rider,  she 
le  red  rider, 
er, '  That  is 
ads.'  Now, 
lood  belongs 

of  Vasilissa 

the  one  for 
h  which  the 

the  fullest 

Tend  seems 
■  the  South 
)lace  among 
V'orld.  We 
sequence  of 
the  charac- 
deas  which 
ed  races,  a 
3sia  and  the 


MYTHOLOaY. 


343 


m 


other  from  North  America,  will  serve  to  give  an  idea  of  the 
varieties  of  treatment  of  phases  of  sun-myth.  The  New 
Zealand  myth  of  Maui,  mixed  as  it  may  1 3  vith  other 
fancies,  is  in  its  most  striking  features  the  story  of  Day  and 
Night.  The  story  of  the  Sun's  birth  from  the  ocean  is  thus 
told.  There  were  five  brothers,  all  called  Maui,  and  it  was 
the  youngest  Maui  who  had  been  thrown  iato  the  sea  by 
Taranga  his  mother,  and  rescued  by  his  ancestor  Tama- 
nui-ki-te-Kangi,  Great-Man-in- Heaven,  who  took  him  to  his 
house,  and  hung  him  in  the  roof.  Then  is  given  in  fanciful 
personality  the  tale  of  the  vanishing  of  Night  at  dawn.  One 
night,  when  Taranga  came  home,  she  found  little  Maui  with 
his  brothers,  and  when  she  knew  her  last  born,  the  child  of 
her  old  age,  she  took  him  to  sleep  with  her,  as  she  had  been 
used  to  take  the  other  Mauis  his  brothers,  before  they  were 
grown  up.  But  the  little  Maui  grew  vexed  and  suspicious, 
when  he  found  that  every  morning  his  mother  rose  at  dawn 
and  disappeared  from  the  house  in  a  moment,  not  to  return 
till  nightfall.  So  one  night  he  crept  out  and  stopped  every 
crevice  in  the  wooden  window  and  the  doorway,  that  the  day 
might  not  shine  into  the  house  ;  then  broke  the  faint  light 
of  early  dawn,  and  then  the  sun  rose  and  mounted  into  the 
heavens,  but  Taranga  slept  on,  for  she  knew  not  it  was  broad 
day  outside.  At  last  she  sprang  up,  pulled  out  the  stopping 
of  the  chinks,  and  fled  in  dismay.  Then  Maui  saw  her 
plunge  into  a  hole  in  the  ground  and  disappear,  and  thus  he 
found  the  deep  cavern  by  which  his  mother  went  down  below 
the  earth  as  each  night  departed.  After  this,  follows  the 
episode  of  Maui's  visit  to  his  anfostress  Muri-ranga-whenua, 
at  that  western  Land's  End  where  Maori  souls  descend  into 
the  subterranean  region  of  the  dead.  She  sniffs  as  he  comes 
towards  her,  and  distends  herself  to  devour  him,  but  when 
she  has  sniffed  round  from  south  by  east  to  north,  she  smells 
his  comi :.';^  by  the  western  breeze,  and  so  knows  that  he  is 
a  descendant  of  hers.  F  asks  for  her  wot'!'^  as  jawbone, 
she  gives  it  to  him,  and  it  is  his  weapon  in  L  •■  next  exploit 
when  he  catches  the  sun,  Tama-nui=te-Ra,  Great-Mar!  -Sun, 


it 


1:. 

f 

|;  .  ^  ft..    . 

■'•■] 

>.      r, 

'  r' 

i^"   »' 

;!  h 

li'i  ;,  :.gf, 

■]'■' ' 

s  ■ 

.|. 

'^     B 

';;!>' 

':.    '     ft 

'  '■  i 

B 

t 

is. 

h 

'rl  ■ 

344 


MYTHOLOGY. 


in  the  noose,  and  wounds  him  and  makes  him  go  slowly. 
With  a  fishhook  pointed  with  the  miraculous  jawbone,  and 
smeared  with  his  own  hlood  for  bait,  Maui  next  performs  his 
most  famous  feat  of  fidliing  np  New  Zealand,  still  called  Te- 
Ika-a-Maui,  the  fish  of  Ma 'i.     lo  understand  this,  we  must 
compare  the  varioub  verc;,\>ris  of  the  stor\  in  these  and  other 
Pacific  Island'!,  whicli  abcv  l-'vai  '    is  a  ;/ neraJ  myth  of  the 
raif 'ng  of  dry  land  from  beneath  tliM  ocean.    It  is  said 
elsewl^ero  that  it  was  Jdaui's  grandfather,  Rangi-Whenua, 
Heaven  Earth,  who  gave  the  jawbone.     More  distinctly,  it 
is  also  said  that  Maui  hud  two  soiis,  w5  om  he  slew  when 
young  to  tak -•  their  jawbones  ;  novf  ihese  two  sons  must  be 
the  Morning  ^iad  Evening,  for  "^Taui  made  the  morning  and 
evening  stars  iroin  an  eyo  of  ea<;n ;  atulit  was  with  the  jaw- 
bone of  the  eldest  that  he  drew  up  the  land  from  the  deep. 
It  is  related  that  when  Maui  pulled  up  his  fish,  he  found  it 
was  land,  on  which  were  houses,  and  stages  on  which  to 
put  food,  and  dogs  barking,  and  fires  burning,  and  people 
working.     It  appears,  moreovei',  that  the  submarine  region 
out  of  which  the  land  was  lifted  was  the  under-world  of 
Night,  for  Maui's  hook  had  caught  the  gable  of  the  house 
of  Hine-nui-te-po,  Great-Daughter-of-Night,  and  when  the 
land  came  up  her  house  was  on  it,  and  she  was  standing 
near.     Another  Maori  legend  tells  how  Maui  takes  fire  in 
his  hands,  it  burns  hiia,  and  he  springs  with  it  into  the  sea : 
'  When  he  sank  in  the  waters,  the  sun  for  the  first  time 
set,  and  darkness  covered  the  earth.     When  he  found  that 
all  was  night,  he  immediately  pursued  the  sun,  and  brought 
him  back  in  the  morning.'     When  Maui  carried  or  flimg  the 
fire  into  the  sea,  he  set  a  volcano  burning.    It  is  told,  again, 
that  when  Maui  had  put  out  all  fire^  on  earth,  his  mother 
sent  him  to  get  new  fire  from  her  ancestress  Mahuika.    The 
Tongans,  in  their  version  of  the  myth,   relate  how  the 
youngest  Maui  discovers  the  cavern  that  leads  to  Bulotu, 
the  west-land   of  the  dead,  and  how  his  father,  anoLUoi" 
Maui,  sends  him  to  i'-'tiyet  older  Maui  who  sits  by  bib  v^reat 
fire  ;  the  two  wrf ;       and  Maui  brings  away  fire  ior  men, 


sii;^*^* 


Q  go  slowly, 
awbone,  and 
performs  his 
illcaUedTe- 
(his,  we  must 
ese  and  other 
myth  of  the 
It  is  said 
ngi-Whenua, 
distinctly,  it 
le  slew  when 
sons  must  be 
morning  and 
with  the  jaw- 
rom  the  deep, 
h,  he  found  it 
on  which  to 
»,  and  people 
narine  region 
ider-world  of 
of  the  house 
md  when  the 
was  standing 
takes  fire  in 
into  the  sea : 
ihe  first  time 
le  found  that 
and  brought 
idorflvmgthe 
is  told,  again, 
h,  his  mother 
ahuika.    The 
ate   how  the 
ds  to  Bulotu, 
ther,  anoll    ' 
by  birt  ^;L•eat 
fire  ior  men. 


MYTHOLOaT. 


345 


leaving  the  old  earthquake-god  lying  crippled  below.  The 
legendary  group  thus  dramatizes  the  birth  of  the  sun  from 
the  ocean  and  the  departure  of  the  night,  the  extinction  of 
the  light  at  sunset  and  its  return  at  dawn,  and  the  descent 
of  the  sun  to  the  western  Hades,  the  under-world  of  night 
and  death,  which  is  incidentally  identified  with  the  region 
of  subterranean  fire  and  earthquake.  Here,  indeed,  the 
characteristics  of  true  nature-myth  are  not  indistinctly 
marked,  and  Maui's  death  by  his  ancestress  the  Night  fitly 
ends  his  solar  career.^ 

It  is  a  sunset-story,  very  difierently  conceived,  that 
begins  the  beautiful  North  American  Indian  myth  of  the 
Red  Swan.  The  story  belongs  to  the  Algonquin  race. 
The  hunter  Ojibwa  had  just  killed  a  bear  and  begun  to 
skin  him,  when  suddenly  something  red  tinged  all  the  air 
around.  Reaching  the  shore  of  a  lake,  the  Indian  saw  it 
was  a  beautiful  red  swan,  whose  plumage  glittered  in  the 
sun.  In  vain  the  hunter  shot  his  shafts,  for  the  bird 
floated  unharmed  and  unheeding,  but  at  last  he  remem- 
bered three  magic  arrows  at  home,  which  had  been  his 
father's.  The  first  and  second  arrow  flew  near  and 
nearer,  the  thii'd  struck  the  swan,  and  flapping  its  wings, 
it  flew  off  slowly  towards  the  sinking  of  the  sun. 
With  full  sense  of  the  poetic  solar  meaning  of  this 
episode,  Longfellow  has  adapted  it  as  a  sunset  picture,  in 
one  of  his  Indian  poems  : 

'Can  it  be  the  sun  descending 
O'er  the  level  plain  of  water  ? 
Or  the  Red  Swan  floating,  flying, 
Wounded  by  the  magic  arrow, 

*  Grey,  '  Polyn.  Myth.'  p.  16,  &c.,  see  144  ;  Jas.  White,  '  Ancient  History 
of  the  Maori,'  vol.  ii.  p.  76, 115.  Other  details  in  Schirren,  '  Wandersageu 
der  Neuseelander,'  pp.  32-7,  148-51 ;  R.  Taylor,  '  New  Zealand,'  p.  124,  &c. ; 
compare  116,  141,  &c.,  and  volcano-myth,  p.  248  ;  Yate, '  New  Zealand,'  p. 
142  ;  Polack,  '  M.  and  C.  of  New.  Z.'  vol.  i.  p.  15  ;  S.  S.  Farmer,  '  Tonga  Is.' 
p.  134.  See  also  Turner,  *  Polynesia,'  pp.  252,  527  (Samoan  version).  In 
comparing  the  group  of  Maui-legends  it  is  to  be  observed  that  New  Zealand 
>Iahuika  and  Maui-Tikitiki  correspond  to  Tongan  Mafuike  and  Kijikiji, 
Samoan  Mali' is  and  Tiitii. 


346  MYTHOLOGY. 

Staining  all  the  waves  with  crimson, 
With  the  crimson  of  its  life-blood, 
Filling  all  the  air  with  splendour, 
With  the  splendour  of  its  plumage  ? ' 

The  story  goes  on  to  tell  how  the  hunter  speeds  westward 
in  pursuit  of  the  Red  Swan.  At  lodges  where  he  rests, 
they  tell  him  she  has  often  passed  there,  but  those  who 
followed  her  have  never  returned.  She  is  the  daughter  of 
an  old  magician  who  has  lost  his  scalp,  which  Ojibwa 
succeeds  in  recovering  for  him  and  puts  back  on  his  head, 
and  the  old  man  rises  from  the  earth,  no  longer  aged  and 
decrepit,  but  splendid  in  youthful  glory.  Ojibwa  departs, 
and  the  magician  calls  forth  the  beautiful  maiden,  now  not 
his  daughter  but  his  sister,  and  gives  her  to  his  victorious 
friend.  It  was  ''n  after  days,  when  Ojibwa  had  gone  home 
with  his  bride,  that  he  travelled  forth,  and  coming  to  an 
opening  in  the  earth,  descended  and  came  to  the  abode  of 
departed  spirits  ;  there  he  could  behold  the  bright  western 
region  of  the  good,  and  the  dark  cloud  of  wickedness.  But 
the  spirits  told  him  that  his  brethren  at  home  were  quaiTel- 
ling  for  the  possession  of  his  wife,  and  at  last,  after  long 
wandering,  this  Red  Indian  Odysseus  returned  to  his 
mourning  constant  Penelope,  /.aid  the  magic  arrows  to  his 
bow,  and  stretched  the  wicV.cd  suitors  dead  at  his  feet.^ 
Thus  savage  leg'^ids  from  Polynesia  and  America,  possibly 
indeed  shaped  under  European  influence,  agree  with  the 
theory^  that  Odysseus  vi.dtingthe  Elysian  fields,  or  Orpheus 
descending  to  the  land  of  Hades  to  bring  back  the  '  wide- 
shining'  Eurydike,  are  but  the  Sun  himself  descending  to, 
and  ascending  from,  the  world  below. 

Where  Night  aud  Hades  take  personal  shape  in  myth. 


•  Schoolcraft,  *  Alj'c  Eea.'  vol.  ii.  pp,  1-33.  The  three  arrows  recur  in 
Manabozho's  slaying  the  Shining  Manitu,  vol.  i.  p.  153.  See  the  remarkably 
corresponding  three  magic  arrows  in  Orvar  Odd's  Saga ;  Nilsson, '  Stone  Age,' 
p.  197.  The  Red-Swan  myth  of  sunset  is  introduced  in  George  Eliot's 
*  Spanish  Gypsy,'  p.  63  ;  Longfellow,  '  Hiawatha,'  xii. 

»  See  Kuhn's  ' Zeitschrift,'  1860,  vol.  ix.  p.  212;  Max  Miiller,  'Chips,' 
vol.  ii.  p.  127  ;  Cox,  '  Mythology,'  vol.  i.  p.  266,  vol.  ii.  p.  239. 


s  westward 
re  he  rests, 

those  who 
daughter  of 
ich  Ojibwa 
an  his  head, 
3r  aged  and 
)wa  departs, 
en,  now  not 
3  victorious 
I  gone  home 
•ming  to  an 
he  abode  of 
ight  western 
idness.    But 
rere  quaixel- 
b,  after  long 
rned  to  his 
iTows  to  his 
it  his  feet.^ 
Lca,  possibly 
ee  with  the 

or  Orpheus 
the  '  wide- 

scending  to, 

je  in  myth, 

rrows  recur  in 
he  remarkably 
m, 'Stone  Age,' 
George  Eliot's 

[iiller,  'Chips,' 


MYTHOLOGY. 


347 


WO  may  expect  to  find  conceptions  like  that  simply  shown 
in  a  Sanskrit  word  for  evening,  '  rajanimukha,'  i.  e., 
'  mouth  of  night.'  Thus  the  Scandinavians  told  of  Hel 
the  death-goddess,  with  mouth  gaping  like  the  mouth  of 
Fenrir  her  brother,  the  moon-devouring  wolf;  and  an  old 
German  poem  describes  Hell's  abyss  yawning  from  heaven 
to  earth : 

'der  was  der  Hellen  gelich 
diu  daz  abgrunde 
begenit  mit  it  munde 
unde  den  himel  zuo  der  erden.'* 

The  sculptuios  on  cathedrals  still  display  for  the  terror  of 
the  wicked  the  awful  jaws  of  Death,  the  mouth  of  Hell 
wide  yawning  to  swallow  its  victims.  Again,  where  barbaric 
cosmology  accepts  the  doctrine  of  a  fii*mament  arching 
above  the  earth,  and  of  an  under  world  whither  the  sun 
descends  when  he  sets  and  man  when  he  dies,  here  the 
conception  of  gates  or  portals,  whether  really  or  metaphori- 
cally meant,  has  its  place.  Such  is  the  great  gate  which 
the  Gold  Coast  negro  describes  the  Heaven  as  opening  in 
the  morning  for  the  Sun;  such  were  I'le  ancient  Greek's 
gates  of  Hades,  and  the  ancient  Jew^s  gates  of  Sheol. 
There  are  three  mythic  descriptions  connec!  rith  these 
ideas  found  among  the  Karens,  the  Algonquin^,  and  the 
Aztecs,  which  are  deserving  of  special  notice.  The  Karens 
of  Birma,  a  race  among  whom  ideas  are  in  great  measure 
borrowed  from  the  more  cultured  Buddhists  they  have 
been  in  contact  with,  have  precedence  here  for  the  dis- 
tinctness of  their  statement.  They  say  that  in  the  west 
there  are  two  massive  strata  o^  rocks  which  are  con- 
tinually opening  and  shutting,  and  between  these  strata 
the  sun  descends  at  sunset,  but  how  i  pper  stratum 

is  supported,  no  one  can  describe.  The  idea  comes  well 
into  view  in  the  description  of  a  Bghai  festival,  where 
sacrificed  fowls  are  thus  addressed, — 'The  seven  heavens, 
thou    ascendest  to  the  top ;  the  seven  earths,  thou  de- 

»  Grimm,  '  D.  M,'  i>p.  291,  767. 


/. 


liM 


348 


MYTHOLOGY. 


t 

•>..: 


r 

'  Ik. 

CTi 

fek:: 

m 

I 

I 


lii' 


mil  I 


Bcendest  to  the  bottom.  Thou  arrivest  at  Khu-the ;  thou 
goest  unto  Tha-ma  [i.  e.,  Yama,  the  Judge  of  the  Dead 
in  Hades].  Thou  goest  through  the  crevices  of  rocks, 
thou  goest  throug}»  the  crevices  of  precipices.  At  the 
opening  and  shutting  of  the  western  gates  of  rock,  thou 
goest  in  between;  thou  goest  below  the  earth  where  the 
Sun  travels.  I  employ  thee,  I  exhort  thee.  I  make  thee 
a  messenger,  I  make  thee  an  angel,  &c.'^  Passing  from 
Birma  to  the  region  of  the  North  American  lakes,  we  find 
a  corr^'^'^onding  description  in  the  Ottawa  tale  of  Iosco, 
uueacty  quoteu  here  for  its  clearly  marked  personifica- 
tion of  Sun  and  Moon.  This  legend,  though  modem 
in  some  of  its  description  of  the  Europeans,  their  ships, 
and  their  far-ott"  land  across  the  sea,  is  evidently 
founded  on  a  myth  of  Day  and  Night.  Iosco  seems  to 
be  loskeha,  the  White  One,  whose  contest  with  his  brother 
Tawiscara,  the  Dark  One,  is  an  early  and  most  genuine 
Hui'on  nature-myth  of  Day  and  Night.  Iosco  and  his 
friends  travel  for  years  eastward  and  eastward  to  reach 
the  sun,  and  come  at  last  to  the  dwelling  of  Manabozho 
near  the  edgr  of  the  "  rid,  and  thci,,  little  beyond, 
to  the  chasm  to  be  passed  on  the  way  to  '^e  land  of  the 
Sun  and  Moon.  They  began  to  hear  thb  ound  of  the 
beating  sky,  and  it  seemed  near  at  hand,  but  V  -^y  had  far 
to  travel  before  they  reached  the  place.  Wh.u  the  sky 
came  down,  its  pressure  wouM  force  gusts  of  wind  fr  i'  the 
opening,  so  strong  that  the  travellers  could  hardly  ep 
their  feet,  and  the  sun  passed  but  a  short  distance 
aL«  ve  their  heads.  The  sky  would  come  down  with 
violence,  but  it  would  rise  slowly  and  gradually.  Iosco  and 
one  of  his  friftuds  stood  near  the  edge,  and  with  a  great 
efi  i-t  leapt  through  and  gained  a  foothold  on  the  other 
side  ;  but  the  other  owo  were  feai'ful  and  undecided,  and 


^  M  son,  'Karens,'  in  Mourn.  As.  Sec.  Bengal,'  1865,  piirt  ii.  pp.  233-4. 
'rof .    iiebrecht,  in  his  notice  of  the  ]  at  ed.  of  the  present  work,  in  '  GOtt.  Gel. 
Anz.    1872,  p.  1200,  refera  to  a  Birmese  legend  in  Bastian,  0.  A.  vol.  ii. 
p.  615,  and  a  Mongol  Ic'end,  Gesser  Chan,  book  iv. 


hu-the;  thou 
of   the  Dead 
ces  of  rocks, 
ices.     At  the 
of  rock,  thou 
th  where  the 
I  make  thee 
Passing  from 
lakes,  we  find 
tale  of  Iosco, 
d  personifica- 
ough   modem 
s,  their  ships, 
is    evidently 
[osco  seems  to 
Lth  his  brother 
most  genuine 
Iosco  and  his 
(vard  to  reach 
of  Manabozho 
little  beyond, 
e  land  of    Ue 
.ound  ot    the 
tl  f*y  had  far 
^hca  the   sky 
wind  frv)n    the 
hardly       tip 
lort   distance 
down   with 
ly.     Iosco  and 
with  a  great 
on  the   other 
ndecided,  and 


part  ii.  pp.  233-4. 
ork,  m'GOtt.Gel. 
ian,  0.  A.  vol.  ii. 


MYTHOLOOT. 


849 


when  their  companions  called  to  them  through  the  dark- 
ness, '  Leap !  leap  I  the  sky  is  on  its  way  down,'  they 
looked  up  and  saw  it  descending,  but  paralyzed  by  fear 
they  sprang  so  feebly  that  they  only  reached  the  other 
side  with  their  hands,  and  the  sky  at  the  same  moment 
striking  violently  on  the  earth  with  a  terrible  sound, 
forced  them  into  the  dreadful  black  abyss.^  lastly, in  the 
funeral  ritual  of  the  Aztecs  there  is  found  a  like  description 
of  the  first  peril  that  the  shade  had  to  encounter  on  the 
road  leading  to  that  subterranean  Land  of  the  Dead,  which 
the  sun  lights  when  it  is  night  on  earth.  Giving  the 
corpse  the  first  of  the  passports  that  were  to  carry  him 
safe  to  his  journey's  end,  the  survivors  said  to  him, '  With 
these  you  will  pass  between  the  two  mountains  that  smite 
one  a  ainst  the  other.' ^  On  the  suggestion  of  this  group 
of  solar  conceptions  and  that  of  Mt*ui's  death,  we  may 
perhaps  explain  as  derived  from  a  broken-down  fancy  of 
solar-myth  that  famous  episode  of  Greek  legend,  where 
the  good  ship  Argo  passed  between  the  Symplegades,  those 
two  huge  cliffs  that  opened  and  closed  again  with  swift 
and  violent  collision.^  Can  any  effort  of  baseless  fancy 
have  brought  into  the  poet's  mind  a  thought  so  quaint  in 
itself,  yet  so  fitting  with  the  Karen  and  Aztec  myths  of 
the  gates  of  Night  and  Death  ?  With  the  Maori  legend, 
the  Argonautic  tale  has  a  yet  deeper  coincidence.  In  both 
the  event  is  to  determine  the  future ;  but  this  thought  is 
worked  out  in  two  converse  ways.    If  Maui  passed  through 

'  Schoolcraft,  '  Algic  Researches,' vol.  ii.  p.  40,  &c.  ;  Loskiel,  '  Gesch.  der 
Mission,'  Barby,  1789,  p.  47  (the  English  edition,  part  i.  p.  35,  is  incorrect). 
See  also  Brinton,  'Myths  of  New  WoiM.'  p.  63.  In  an  Esquimaux  tale, 
Giviok  comes  to  the  two  mountains  which  sl>ui  and  open  ;  paddling  swiftly 
between,  he  gets  through,  but  the  mountains  clashing  together  crash  the 
stern  of  his  kayak.  Rink,  '  Eskimoische  E'.entyr  og  Sagn,'  p.  98,  referred  to 
byLiebrecht,  1.  c. 

'  Kingsborough,  'Antiquities  of  Mexico,' vol.  i. ;  Torquemada,  'Monarquia 
Indiana,'  xiii.  47  ;  '  Con  estos  has  de  pusar  por  medio  de  dos  Sierras,  quo 
SI'  ostan  batiendo,  y  encontrando  la  una  con  la  otra.'  Clavigero,  vol.  ii. 
p.  94. 

'  Apollodor.  i.  9,  22  ;  Apollon.  Rhod.  Argonautica,  ii.  810-616 ;  Pindar, 
'  Pythia  Carm.'  iv.  370. 


850 


V,»TH0T.0OY, 


c 


"»! 


f 


I. 

f 

r 

:    R 

It 

I 

» 

f 


III 


the  entrance  of  Night  and  returned  to  Day,  death  should 
not  hold  mankind ;  if  the  Argo  passed  the  Clashers,  the 
way  should  lie  open  between  them  for  ever.  The  Argo 
sped  through  in  safety,  and  the  Sympl^ades  can  clash  no 
longer  on  the  passing  ship ;  Maui  was  crushed,  and  man 
comes  not  forth  again  from  Hades. 

There  is  another  solar  metaphor  which  describes  the  sun, 
not  as  a  personal  creature,  but  as  a  member  of  a  yet  greater 
being.  He  is  called  in  Java  and  Sumatra  'Mata-ari,'  in 
Madagascar  '  Maso-andro,'  the  '  Eye  of  Day.'  If  we 
look  for  translation  of  this  thought  from  metaphor  into 
myth,  we  may  find  it  in  the  New  Zealand  stories  of  Maui 
setting  his  own  eye  up  in  heaven  as  the  Sun,  and  the  eyes 
of  his  two  children  as  the  Morning  and  the  Evening  Stai's.* 
The  nature-myth  thus  implicitly  and  explicitly  stated  is 
one  widely  developed  on  Aryan  giound.  It  forms  part  of 
that  macrocosmic  description  of  the  universe  well  known  in 
Asiatic  myth,  and  in  Europe  expressed  in  that  passage  of 
the  Orphic  poem  which  tells  of  Jove,  at  once  the  world's 
ruler  and  the  world  itself :  his  glorious  head  irradiates  the 
sky  where  hangs  his  starry  hair,  the  waters  of  the  sounding 
ocean  are  the  belt  that  girds  his  sacred  body  the  earth 
omniparent,  his  eyes  are  sun  and  moon,  his  mind,  moving 
and  ruling  by  counsel  all  things,  is  the  royal  sether  that  no 
voice  nor  sound  escapes : 

'Sunt  oculi  Phoebus,  Phcfiboque  adversa  recurrens 
Cynthia.    Mens  verax  nullique  obnoxius  aether 
Regius  interitu',  qui  cuncta  movetque  regitque 
Consilio.    Vox  nulla  potest,  sonitusve,  nee  uUus 
Hancce  Jovis  sobolem  strepitus,  nee  fama  latere. 
Sie  animi  sensum,  et  eaput  immortale  beatus 
Obtinet :  illustre,  immensum,  immutabile  pandens, 
Atque  lacertorum  valido  stans  robore  certus.'* 

Where  the  Aryan  myth-maker  takes  no  thought  of  the 


^  Polack,  'Manners  of  N.  Z.'  vol.  i.  p.  16  ;  '  New  Zealand,' vol.  i.  p.  358  ; 
Yate,  p.  142  ;  Schirren,  pp.  88,  166. 
'  Euseb.  Prsep.  Evang.  iii.  9. 


cath  Bhould 
llashors,  the 
The  Argo 
an  clash  no 
sd,  and  man 

ibes  the  sun, 
I  yet  greater 
Mata-ari,'  in 
ly.'      If    we 
jtaphor  into 
ries  of  Maui 
and  the  eyes 
Dning  Stars.^ 
tly  stated  is 
orms  part  of 
ell  known  in 
at  passage  of 
)  the  world's 
rradiates  the 
he  sounding 
the  earth 
lind,  moving 
)her  that  no 


rens 
ler 
ue 
lus 
itere. 

[8 

^ndens, 
>s 

ught  of  the 


1,'vol.L  p.  858  ; 


MYTHOLOay. 


361 


lesser  light,  he  can  in  various  terms  describe  the  sun  as  the 
eye  of  heaven.  In  the  Rig- Veda  it  is  the  •  eye  of  Mitra, 
Varuna,  and  Agni ' — '  chakshuh  Mitrasya  Varunasyah 
Agneh.'^  In  the  Zend-Avesta  it  is  '  the  shining  sun  with 
the  swift  horses,  the  eye  of  Ahura-Mazda ;  *  elsewhere  both 
eyes,  apparently  sun  and  moon,  are  praised.*  To  Hosiod  it 
is  the  '  all-seeing  eye  of  Zeus  ' — '  Ttavra  ibwv  Atos  6(t>0a\fji6i : ' 
Macrobius  speaks  of  antiquity  calling  the  sun  the  eye  of 
Jove — *  ri  T/Aios ;  ovpdvios  6(f)0ai\ix6i.'  ^  The  old  Germans,  in 
calling  the  sun  *  Wuotan's  eye,'  *  recognized  Wuotan,  Woden, 
Odhin,  as  being  himself  the  divine  Heaven.  These  mythic 
expressions  are  of  the  most  unequivocal  type.  By  the  hint 
they  give,  conjectural  interpretations  may  be  here  not  indeed 
asserted,  but  suggested,  for  two  of  the  quaintest  episodes  of 
ancient  European  myth.  Odin,  the  All-father,  say  the  old 
skalds  of  Scandinavia,  sits  among  hisiEsirin  the  cityAsgard, 
on  his  high  throne  Hlidskialf  (Lid-shelf),  whence  he  can  look 
down  over  the  whole  world  discerning  all  the  deeds  of  men. 
He  is  an  old  man  wrapped  in  his  wide  cloak,  and  clouding 
his  face  with  his  wide  hat, '  os  pileo  ne  cultu  proderetur 
obnubens,'  as  Saxo  Qrammaticus  has  it.  Odin  is  one- 
eyed  ;  he  desired  to  drink  from  Mimir's  well,  but  he  had 
to  leave  there  one  of  his  eyes  in  pledge,  as  it  is  said  in  the 
Voluspa : 

'  All  know  I,  Odin  !    Where  thou  hiddest  thine  eye 
In  Mimir's  famous  well. 
Mead  drinks  Mimir  every  morning 
From  Wale-father's  pledge — Wit  ye  what  this  is?' 

As  Odin's  single  eye  seems  certainly  to  be  the  sun  in 
heaven,  one  may  guess  what  is  the  lost  eye  in  the  well 
— perhaps  the  sun's  own  reflection  in  any  pool,  or  more 

»  Rig- Veda,  i.  115  ;  Bohtlingk  and  Roth,  s.  v. '  mitra.' 

'  Avesta,  tr.  Spiegel,  *  Ya9na,'  i.  36  ;  iii.  Ixvii.,  61-2  ;  compare  Burnoxif, 
»Ya9na.' 

'  Macrob.  Satumal.  i.  21,  13.  See  Max  Miillor,  'Chips,'  vol.  ii. 
p.  85. 

*  Grimm,  *  Deutsche  Myth.'  p.  665.  See  also  Hanusch,  '  Slaw.  Myth.' 
p.  213. 


352 


MYTHOLOaY. 


J[iL.^^H 

( 

,lii 

\ 

W 

11 

^ 

1' 

1 

'mm    1 

V  '1 

1 
1 

1 

1.;! 

1 

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ll 

1 
1 

1 

1 
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lli 

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M' 

P**'-*'       i'-:;:^ 

g-te      ISlif 

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likely  that  of  the  moon,  which  in  popular  myth  is  told 
of  as  found  in  the  well.^  Possibly,  too,  some  such  solar 
fancy  may  explain  part  of  the  myth  of  Perseus.  There 
are  three  Scandinavian  Norns,  whose  names  are  Urdhr, 
Verdhandi,  and  Skuld — Was,  and  Is,  and  Shall-be — 
and  these  three  maidens  are  the  '  Weird  sisters '  who 
fix  the  lifetime  of  all  men.  So  the  Fates,  the  Parkai, 
daughters  of  the  inevitable  Anagke,  divide  among  them 
the  periods  of  time:  Lachesis  sings  the  past,  Klotho 
the  present,  Atropos  the  future.  Now  is  it  allowable  to 
consider  these  fatal  sisters  as  of  common  nature  with 
two  other  mythic  sister-triads — the  Graiai  and  their 
kinsfolk  the  Gorgons  ?  '^  If  it  be  so,  it  is  easy  to  under- 
stand why  of  the  three  Gorgons  one  alone  was  mortal, 
whose  life  her  two  immortal  sisters  could  not  save,  for 
the  deathless  past  and  future  cannot  save  the  ever-dying 
present.  Nov  would  the  riddle  be  hard  to  read,  what 
is  the  one  eye  that  the  Graiai  had  between  them,  and 
passed  from  one  to  another"? — the  eye  of  day — the  sun, 

»  Edda,  '  VOluspa,'  22  ;  '  Gylfaginning,'  15.  See  Grimm,  '  D.  M.'  p.  183  ; 
'  Reinhart  Fuchs.' 

"  As  to  the  identification  of  the  Norns  and  the  Fates,  see  Grimm, '  D.  M.' 
pp.  376-86;  Max  Muller,  'Chips,'  vol.  ii.  p.  154.  Tt  is  to  be  observed  in 
connexion  with  the  Perseus-myth,  that  another  of  its  obscure  episodes,  the 
Gorgon's  head  turning  those  who  look  on  it  into  stone,  corresponds  with 
myths  of  the  sun  itself.  In  Hispaniola,  men  came  out  of  two  caves  (thus 
being  born  of  their  mother  Earth)  ;  the  giant  who  guarded  these  caves 
strayed  one  night,  and  the  rising  sun  turned  him  into  a  great  rock  called 
Kauta,  just  as  the  Gorgon's  head  turned  Atlas  the  Earth-bearer  into  the 
mountain  that  bears  his  name ;  after  this,  others  of  the  early  cave-men  were 
surprised  by  the  sunlight,  and  turned  into  stones,  trees,  plants  or  beasts 
(Friar  Roman  Pane  in  '  Life  of  Columbus '  in  Pinkorton,  vol.  xii.  p.  80 ; 
J.  G.  Muller,  '  Amer.  Urrelig.'  p.  179).  In  Central  America  a  Quiche  legend 
relates  how  the  ancient  animals  were  petrified  by  the  Sun  (Brasseur,  '  Popol 
Vuh,'  p.  245).  Thus  the  Americans  have  the  analogue  of  the  Scandinavian 
myths  of  giants  and  dwarfs  surprised  by  daylight  outside  their  hiding-places, 
and  turned  to  stones.  Such  fancies  appear  connected  with  the  fancied  human 
shapes  of  rocks  or  'standing  stones '  which  peasants  still  account  for  as 
transformed  creatures.  Thus  in  Fiji,  two  rocks  are  a  male  and  female  deity 
turned  to  stone  at  daylight,  Seomann, '  Viti,'  p.  66  ;  see  Liebrechtin  'Heidel- 
berg. Jahrb.'  1864,  p.  216.  This  idea  is  brought  also  into  the  Porseus-myth, 
for  the  rocks  abounding  in  Seriphos  are  the  islanders  thus  petrified  by  the 
Gorgon's  head. 


ayth  is  told 
B  such  solar 
seus.    There 

are   Urdhr, 

Shall-be— 

sisters '  who 

the  Parkai, 
aiQong  them 
past,  Klotho 
allowable  to 

nature  with 

and    their 

isy  to  under- 

was  mortal, 
not  save,  for 
le  ever-dyiug 
J  read,  what 
m  them,  and 
ay — the  sun, 

n, 'D.M.'p.  133; 

e  Grimm, '  D.  M.' 
o  be  observed  in 
!ure  episodes,  the 
Borresponds  with 
two  caves  (thus 
rded  these  caves 
great  rock  called 
ii-bearer  into  the 
ly  cave-men  were 
plants  or  beasts 
1,  vol.  xii.  p.  80  ; 
a  Quich6  legend 
^Brasseur,  'Popol 
;ho  Scandinavian 
eir  hiding-places, 
le  fancied  human 
11  account  for  as 
and  female  deity 
jrechtin  'Heidel- 
tio  Perseus-myth, 
s  petrified  by  the 


MYTHOLOGY. 


353 


that  the  past  gives  up  to  the  present,  and  the   present 
to  the  future. 

Compared  with  the  splendid  Lord  of  Day,  the  pale  Lady 
of  Night  takes,  in  myth  as  in  nature,  a  lower  and  lesser 
place.  Among  the  wide  legendary  group  which  associates 
together  Sun  and  Moon,  two  striking  examples  are  to  be 
seen  in  the  traditions  by  which  half-civilized  races  of  South 
America  traced  their  rise  from  the  condition  of  the  savage 
tribes  around  them,  These  legends  have  been  appealed  to 
even  by  modem  writers  as  gratefully-remembered  records 
of  real  human  benefactors,  who  carried  long  ago  to  America 
the  culture  of  the  Old  World,  But  happily  for  historic 
truth,  mythic  tradition  tells  its  tales  without  expurgating 
the  episodes  which  betray  its  real  character  to  more  critical 
observation.  The  Muyscas  of  the  high  plains  of  Bogota 
were  once,  they  said,  savages  without  agriculture,  religion, 
or  law  ;  but  there  came  to  them  from  the  East  an  old  and 
beardod  man,  Bochica,  the  child  of  the  Sun,  and  he  taught 
them  to  till  the  fields,  to  clothe  themselves,  to  worship  the 
gods,  to  become  a  nation.  But  Bochica  had  a  wicked, 
beautiful  wife,  Huythaca,  who  loved  to  spite  and  spoil  her 
husband's  work ;  and  she  it  was  who  made  the  river  swell 
till  the  land  was  covered  by  a  flood,  and  but  a  few  of  man- 
kind escaped  upon  the  mountain-tops.  Then  Bochica  was 
wroth,  and  he  drove  the  wicked  Huythaca  from  the  earth, 
and  made  her  the  Moon,  for  there  had  been  no  moon  be- 
fore ;  and  he  cleft  the  rocks  and  made  the  mighty  cataract 
of  Tequendama,  to  let  the  deluge  flow  away.  Then,  when 
the  land  was  dry,  ht  gave  to  the  remnant  of  mankind  the 
year  and  its  periodic  sacrifices,  and  the  worship  of  the 
Sun.  Now  the  people  who  told  this  myth  had  not  for- 
gotten, what  indeed  we  might  guess  without  their  help, 
that  Bochica  was  himself  Zuh^,  the  Sun,  and  Huythaca 
the  Sun's  wife,  the  Moon.^ 

'  Piedrahita, '  Hist.  Gen.  de  las  Conquistas  del  Nuevo  Reyno  de  Granada,' 
Antwerp,  1688,  part  i.  lib.  i.  c.  8  ;  Humboldt,  *  Monumens,'  pi.  vi. ;  J.  G. 


Mullor,  'Amer.  Urrelig."  pp.  423-30. 
VOL.  I. 


A  a 


■ff- 


i  ■■■    '■■,;< 


354 


MYTHOLOGY. 


■iliipi' 


iw/' ... 


I*. 


*iii' 
.ij|i 


S'l'i 


l^ 


Like  to  this  in  meaning,  though  different  in  fancy,  is  the 
civilization-myth  of  the  Incas.  Men,  said  this  Qaichua 
legend,  were  savages  dwelling  in  caves  like  wild  beasts, 
devouring  wild  roots  and  fruit  and  human  flesh,  covering 
themselves  with  leaves  and  bark  or  skins  of  animals.  But 
our  father  the  Sun  took  pity  on  them,  and  sent  two  of  his 
children,  Manco  Ccapac  and  his  sister-wife.  Mama  Occllo : 
these  rose  from  the  lake  of  Titicaca,  and  gave  to  the  uncul- 
tured hordes  law  and  government,  marriage  and  moral 
order,  tillage  and  art  and  science.  Thus  was  founded  the 
great  Peruvian  empire,  where  in  after  agss  each  Inca  and 
his  sister- wife,  continuing  the  mighty  race  of  Manco  Ccapac 
and  Mama  Occllo,  represented  in  rule  and  religion  not  only 
the  first  earthly  royal  ancestors,  but  the  heavenly  father  and 
mother  of  whom  we  can  see  these  to  be  personifications, 
namely,  the  Sun  himself,  and  his  sister-wife  the  Moon.  ^ 
Thus  the  nations  of  Bogota  and  Peru,  remembering  their 
days  of  former  savagery,  and  the  association  of  their  culture 
with  their  national  religion,  embodied  their  traditions  in 
myths  of  an  often-recurring  type,  aocribing  to  the  gods 
themselves,  in  human  shape,  the  establishment  of  their 
own  worship. 

The  '  inconstant  moon '  figures  in  ;\  group  of  character- 
istic stories.  Australian  legend  says  that  Mityan,  the  Moon, 
was  a  native  cat,  who  fell  in  love  with  .^ome  one  else's  wife, 
and  was  driven  away  to  wander  ever  since.^  The  Khasias 
of  the  Himalaya  say  that  the  Moon  falls  monthly  in  love 
with  his  mother-in-law,  who  throws  ashes  in  his  face,  whence 
his  spots.  ^     Slavonic  legend,  following  the  same  track,  says 


I  K.1H 


*  Garcilaso  de  la  Vega,  '  Oommentarioa  Reales,'  i.  c.  15  ;  Proscott,  '  Peru,' 
vol.  i.  p.  7  ;  J.  Gr.  Miiller,  pp.  303-8,  328-3'J.  Other  Peruvian  versions  show 
the  fundamental  solar  idea  in  different  mythic  shapes  (Tr.  of  Cieza  de  Leon, 
tr.  and  ed.  by  C.  R.  Markham,  Hakluyt  Soc.  1864,  pp.  xlix.  '2'J8,  316,  372). 
W.  B.  Stevenson  ('  Residence  in  S.  America,'  vol.  i.  p.  394)  and  Bastiau 
('  Mensch,'  vol.  iii.  p.  347)  met  with  a  curious  perversion  of  the  myth,  in 
which  Inca  Manco  Ccapac,  corrupted  into  Ingasman  Cocapac,  gave  risie  to  a 
story  of  an  Englishman  figuring  in  the  midbt  of  Peruvian  mythology. 

^  Stanbridge,  '  Abor.  of  Australia,'  in  '  Tr.  Eth.  Soc'  vol.  i.  p.  801. 

^  H.  Yule,  '  Journ.  As.  Soc.  Bengal,'  vo'.  xiii.  p.  628. 


MYTHOLOGY. 


355 


mcy,  is  the 
LB  Qaichua 
rild  beasts, 
ih,  covering 
mals.     But 
two  of  his 
ma  Occllo: 
)  the  uncul- 
and  moral 
founded  the 
eh  Inea  and 
a,nco  Ccapac 
ion  not  only 
y  father  and 
lonifi  cations, 
the   Moon.^ 
hering  their 
their  culture 
traditions  in 
to  the  gods 
ent  of  their 

)f  character- 
in,  the  Moon, 
le  elses  wife, 
JTheKhasias 
ithly  in  love 
face,  whence 
le  track,  says 

'roscott,  '  Peru," 
In  versions  show 
V  Cioza  de  Leon, 
2'J8,  316,  372). 
k)  and  Biistian 
I  of  the  myth,  in 
k  gave  rine  to  a 
lythology. 
i.  p.  801. 


that  the  Moon,  King  of  Night  and  husband  of  the  Sun, 
faithlessly  loved  the  Morning  Star,  wherefore  he  was  cloven 
through  in  punishment,  as  we  see  him  in  the  sky.^  By  a 
different  train  of  thought,  the  Moon's  periodic  death  and  re- 
vival has  suggested  a  painful  contrast  to  the  destiny  of  man, 
in  one  of  the  most  often-repeated  and  characteristic  mj^hs 
of  South  Africa,  which  is  thus  told  among  the  Namaqua. 
The  Moon  once  sent  the  Hare  to  Men  to  give  this  message, 
'  Like  as  I  die  and  rise  to  life  again,  so  you  also  shall  die 
and  rise  to  life  again,'  but  the  Hare  went  to  the  Men  and 
said,  '  Like  as  I  die  and  do  not  rise  again,  so  you  shall  also 
die  and  not  rise  to  life  again.'  Then  the  Hare  returned 
and  told  the  Moon  what  he  had  done,  and  the  Moon  struck 
at  him  with  a  hatchet  and  slit  his  lip,  as  it  has  remained 
ever  since,  and  some  say  the  Hare  fled  and  is  still  fleeing, 
but  others  say  he  clawed  at  the  Moon's  face  and  left  the 
scars  that  are  still  to  be  seen  on  it,  and  they  also  say  that 
the  reason  wi  y  the  Namaqua  object  to  eating  the  hare  (a 
prejudice  w^hi>..i  in  fact  they  share  with  very  different  races) 
is  because  he  brought  to  men  this  evil  message.^  It  is  re- 
markable that  a  story  so  closely  resembling  this,  that  it  is 
difficult  not  to  suppose  both  to  be  vereions  from  a  common 
original,  is  told  in  the  distant  Fiji  Islands.  There  was  a 
dispute  between  two  gods  as  to  how  man  should  die :  '  Ra 
Vula  (the  Moon)  contended  that  man  should  be  like 
himself — disappear  awhile  and  then  live  again.  Ra  Kalavo 
(the  Rat)  would  not  listen  to  this  kind  proposal,  but  said, 
"  Let  man  die  as  a  rat  dies."  And  he  prevailed.'  The  dates 
of  the  versions  seem  to  show  that  the  presence  of  these 
myths  among  the  Hottentots  and  Fijians,  at  the  two 
opposite  sides  of  the  globe,  is  at  any  rate  not  due  to 
transmission  in  modern  times. ^ 

'  Hanusch,  'Slaw.  Myth.'  p.  269. 

^  Blcek, '  Keynard  in  S.  Africa,'  pp.  69-74  ;  C.  J.  Andersson, '  Lake  Ngami,' 
p.  328  ;  see  (.irout,  '  Zulu-land,'  p.  148  ;  Arbousset  and  Daumas,  p.  471.  As 
to  connexion  of  the  moon  with  the  hare,  cf  Skr.  *  (a9anka  ; '  and  in  Mexico, 
Sahagun,  book  vii.  c.  2.  in  King.sboiough,  vol.  vii. 

'  Williams,  *  Fiji,'  vol.  i.  p.  205.    Compare  the  Caroline  Island  myth  that 

A  a  '.2 


^c 


356 


MYTHOLOGY. 


m. 


ft 
It, 


If    !i. 


n-  ■ 

ilitii 


II 


i;  !M 


"!iit 


Y^  There  is  a  very  elaborate  savage  nature-myth  of  the 

/      generation  of  the  Stars,  which  may  unquestionably  serve  as 

/  a  clue  connecting  the  history  of  two  distant  tribes.    The 

rude  Mintira  of  the  Malayan  Peninsula  express  in  plain 
terms  the  belief  in  a  solid  firmament,  usual  in  the  lower 
grades  of  civilization ;  they  say  the  sky  is  a  great  pot  held 
over  the  earth  by  a  cord,  and  if  this  cord  broke,  everything 
on  earth  would  be  crushed.  The  Moon  is  a  woman,  and 
the  Sun  also:  the  Stars  are  the  Moon's  childr'^n,  and  the 
Sun  had  in  old  times  as  many.  Fearing,  however,  that 
mankind  could  not  ovar  so  much  brightness  and  heat,  they 
agreed  each  to  devour  her  c^Aildren  ;  but  the  Moon,  instead 
of  eating  up  her  Stars,  hid  them  from  the  Sun's  sight,  who, 
believing  them  all  devoured,  ate  up  her  own  ;  no  sooner  had 
she  done  it,  than  the  Moon  brougho  her  family  out  of  their 
hiding-place.  When  the  Sun  saw  them,  filled  with  tage 
she  chased  the  Moon  to  kill  her ;  the  chase  has  lasted  ever 
since,  and  sometimes  the  Sun  even  comes  neo,r  enough  to 
bite  the  Moon,  and  that  is  an  eclipse  ;  the  Sun,  as  men  may 
still  see,  devours  his  Stars  at  dawn,  and  the  Moon  hides 
hers  all  day  while  the  Sun  is  near,  and  only  brings  them 
out  at  night  when  hor  pursuer  is  far  away.  Now  among  a 
tribe  of  North  East  India,  the  Ho  of  Chota-Nagpore,  the 
myth  reappears,  obviously  from  the  same  source,  but  with  a 
varied  ending ;  the  Sun  eieft  the  Moon  in  twain  for  her 
decet,  and  thus  cloven  and  growing  whole  again  she 
remains,  and  her  daughters  with  her  which  are  the  Stars.^ 

From  savagerv  up  to  civilization,  there  may  be  traced  in 
the  mythology  of  the  Stars  a  course  of  thought,  changed 

ill  tho  beginning  men  only  quitted  lifo  on  tlio  last  day  of  the  waning  moon, 
and  resuscitated  as  from  a  peaceful  sleep  when  she  reappeared  ;  liut  the  evil 
spirit  Erigirers  inflicted  a  death  from  which  there  is  no  revival :  De  Brosses, 
'  Hist,  dea  Navig.  aux  Torres  Australes,'  vol.  ii.  p.  470.  Also  in  a  song  of 
the  Indians  of  California  it  is  said,  that  oven  as  tho  moon  dies  and  returns 
to  life,  so  they  shall  be  re-born  after  death  ;  Duflot  de  Mofras  in  Bustian, 
'Rechtsverhilltnisse,'  p.  385,  see  'Psychologie,'  p.  54. 

'  ' Journ.  Iiid.  Archip.'  vol.  i.  p.  284  ;  vol.  iv.  p.  333  ;  Tlekell  in  'Jourii. 
As.  Soc'  Bengal,  vol.  ix.  part  ii.  p.  79"  ;  Latham,  '  Descr.  Eth.'  vol.  ii. 
p.  422. 


lyth  of  the 
bly  serve  as 
iribes.    The 
3SS  in  plain 
n  the  lower 
eat  pot  held 
),  everything 
woman,  and 
r'^n,  and  the 
3wever,  that 
id  heat,  they 
[oon,  instead 
s  sight,  who, 
.0  sooner  had 
J  out  of  their 
;d  with  rdge 
IS  lasted  ever 
ar  enough  to 
.,  as  men  may 

Moon  hides 

brings  them 
^ow  among  a 
Nagpore,  the 
;e,  but  with  a 
tvain  for  her 

e   again   she 
the  Stars.^ 
be  traced  in 

ght,  changed 

10  waning  moon, 
•od  ;  hutthoovil 
al :  Do  Brosses, 
Iso  in  a  song  of 
dies  and  returns 
frus  in  Bastian, 

iL-kcU  in  '  Journ. 
cr.  Eth.'  vol.  ii. 


MYTHOLOGY. 


357 


indeed  in  application,  yet  never  broken  in  its  evident  con- 
nexion from  first  to  last.  The  savage  sees  individual  stars 
as  animate  beings,  or  combines  star-groups  into  living 
celestial  creatures,  or  limbs  of  them,  or  objects  connected 
with  them  ;  while  at  the  other  extremity  of  the  scale  of 
civilization,  the  modern  astronomer  keeps  up  just  such 
ancient  fancies,  turning  them  to  account  in  useful  survival, 
as  a  means  of  mapping  out  the  celestial  globe.  The  savage 
names  and  stories  of  stars  and  constellations  may  seem  at 
first  but  childish  and  purposeless  fancies ;  but  it  always 
happens  in  the  study  of  the  lower  races,  that  the  more 
means  we  have  of  understanding  their  thoughts,  the  more 
sense  and  reason  do  we  find  in  them.  The  aborigines  of 
Australia  say  that  Yurree  and  Wanjel,  who  are  the  stars  we 
call  Castor  and  Pollux,  pursue  Purra  the  Kangaroo  (our 
Capella),  and  kill  him  at  the  beginning  of  the  great  heat, 
and  the  mirage  is  the  smoke  of  the  fire  they  roast  him  by. 
They  say  also  that  Marpean-Kurrk  and  Neilloan  (Arcturus 
and  Lyra)  were  the  discoverers  of  the  ant-pupas  and  the  eggs 
of  the  loan-bird,  and  taught  the  aborigines  to  find  them  for 
food.  Translated  into  the  language  of  fact,  these  simple 
myths  record  the  Bummer  place  of  the  stars  in  question, 
and  the  seasons  of  ant-pupas  and  loan-eggs,  which  seasons 
are  marked  by  the  stars  who  are  called  their  discoverers.^ 
Not  less  transparent  is  the  meaning  in  the  beautiful  ^.Igon-  j  ' 
quin  myth  of  the  Summer-Maker.  In  old  days  eternal  / 
winter  reigned  upon  the  earth,  till  a  sprightly  little  animal 
called  the  Fisher,  helped  by  other  beasts  his  friends,  broke 
an  opening  through  the  sky  into  the  lovely  heaven-land 
beyond,  let  the  warm  winds  pour  forth  and  the  summer 
descend  to  earth,  and  opened  the  cages  of  the  prisoned 
birds :  but  when  the  dwellers  in  heaven  saw  their  birds  let 
loose  and  their  warm  gales  descending,  they  started  in  pur- 
suit, and  shooting  their  arrows  at  the  Fisher,  hit  him  at 
last  in  his  one  vulnerable  spot  at  the  tip  of  his  tail ;  thus 
he  died  for  the  good  of  the  inhabitants  of  earth,  and  became 

>  Staiibridge  in  'Tr.  Eth.  Sec'  vol.  i.  pp.  301-3. 


.wt^ 


358 


MYTHOLOGY. 


T; 

;li 

MKUi^ 

ll-S^; 

..,111 

PrS'ji- 

liii 

t'-- 

.1! 

iv- 

Hi  4-- 

;;;! 

K.. 

if 

ft. 

f 

*■''    -iw 

-n.    '-''^ 

!&;:?'; 

r' 

»•. . . 

rJ^ 

k:,   -h 

'  '  r'l 

lib      ^'.'"*  '' 

.i-'^iv 

•P.  iS 

'It;.. 

!■  1 

''.riiSSi 

•    :^ 

•■k 

p- 

.  ■* 

1    ^ 

■:i8i' 

ii. 

'■'U 

^ 

il ! 

1 

:* 

.'it! 

t.r«l 

the  constellation  that  bears  his  name,  so  that  still  at  the 
proper  season  men  see  him  lying  as  he  fell  toward  the  north 
on  the  plains  of  heaven,  with  the  fatal  arrow  still  sticking 
in  his  tail.^  Compare  these  savage  stories  with  Orion  pur- 
suing the  Pleiad  sisters  who  take  refuge  from  him  in  the 
sea,  and  the  maidens  who  wept  themselves  to  death  and 
became  the  starry  cluster  of  the  Hyades,  whose  rising  and 
setting  betokened  rain:  such  mythic  creatures  might  for 
simple  significance  have  been  invented  by  savages,  even  as 
the  savage  constellation-myths  might  have  been  made  by 
ancient  Greeks.  When  we  consider  that  the  Australians 
who  can  invent  such  myths,  and  invent  them  with  such 
fulness  of  meaning,  are  savages  who  put  two  and  one  to- 
gether to  make  their  numeral  for  three,  we  may  judge  how 
deep  in  the  history  of  culture  those  conceptions  lie,  of 
which  the  relics  are  still  represented  in  our  star-maps  by 
Castor  and  Pollux,  Arcturus  and  Sirius,  Bo5tes  and  Orion, 
the  Argo  and  the  Charles's  Wain,  the  Toucan  and  the 
Southern  Cross.  Whether  civilized  or  savage,  whether 
ancient  or  new  made  after  the  ancient  manner,  such  names 
are  so  like  in  character  that  any  tribe  of  men  might  adopt 
them  from  any  other,  as  American  tribes  are  known  to 
receive  European  names  into  their  own  skies,  and  as  our 
constellation  of  the  Royal  Oak  is  said  to  have  found  its 
way,  in  new  copies  of  the  old  Hindu  treatises,  into  the 
company  of  the  Seven  Sages  and  the  other  ancient  constel- 
lations of  Brahmanic  India. 

Such  fancies  are  so  fanciful,  that  two  peoples  seldom  fall 
on  the  same  name  for  a  constellation,  while,  even  within 
the  limits  of  the  same  race,  terms  may  differ  altogether. 
Thus  the  stars  whicl^  we  call  Orion's  Belt  are  in  New 
Zealand  either  the  Elbow  of  Maui,  or  they  form  the  stern 

•  Schoolcraft,  '  Algic  Res.'  vol,  i.  pp.  [.7-66.  The  story  of  the  hero  or 
deity  invulnerable  like  Achilles  save  in  one  weak  spot,  recurs  in  the  tales 
of  the  slaying  of  the  Shining  Manitu,  whose  scalp  alone  was  vulnerable,  and 
of  ih'*  mighty  Kwasind,  who  could  be  killed  only  by  the  cone  of  the  white 
pine  wounding  the  vulnerable  place  on  the  crown  of  his  head  (vol.  i.  p.  153  ; 
vol.  ii.  p.  163). 


still  at  the 

d  the  north 

iill  sticking 

Orion  pur- 

him  in  the 

I  death  and 

rising  and 

i  might  for 

jes,  even  as 

an  made  by 

Australians 

1  with  such 

i,nd  one  to- 

r  judge  how 

ions  lie,  of 

;ar-maps  by 

and  Orion, 

m  and  the 

je,   whether 

such  names 

aight  adopt 

known  to 

and  as  our 

e  found  its 

s,  into  the 

ent  constel- 

seldom  fall 
3ven  within 
altogether, 
re  in  New 
m  the  stern 

)f  tho  hero  or 
rs  in  the  tales 
ulnerable,  and 
le  of  the  white 
(vol.  i.  i>.  153  ; 


MYTHOLOOY. 


359 


of  the  Canoe  of  Tamarerete,  whose  anchor  dropped  from 
the  prow  is  the  Southern  Cross.^  The  Great  Bear  is  equally 
like  a  Wain,  Orion's  Belt  serves  as  well  for  Frigga's  or 
Mary's  Spindle,  or  Jacob's  Staff.  Yet  sometimes  natural 
correspondences  occur.  The  seven  sister  Pleiades  seem  to 
the  Australians  a  group  of  girls  playing  to  a  corroboree  ; 
while  the  North  American  Indians  call  them  the  Dancers, 
and  the  Lapps  the  Company  of  Virgins.^  Still  more 
striking  is  the  correspondence  between  savages  and  cultured 
nations  in  fancies  of  the  bright  starry  band  that  lies  like  a 
road  across  the  sky.  The  Basutos  call  it  the  '  Way  of  the 
Gods ; '  the  Ojis  say  it  is  the  '  Way  of  Spirits,'  which 
souls  go  up  to  heaven  by.^  North  American  tribes  know  it 
as  '  the  Path  of  the  Master  of  Life,'  the  '  Path  of  Spirits,' 
'  the  Road  of  Souls,'  where  they  travel  to  the  land  beyond 
the  grave,  and  where  their  camp-fires  may  be  seen  blazing 
as  brighter  stars.*  Such  savage  imaginations  of  the  Milky 
Way  fit  with  the  Lithuanian  myth  of  the  'Road  of  the 
Birds,'  at  whose  end  the  souls  of  the  good,  fancied  as 
flitting  away  at  death  like  birds,  dwell  free  and  happy .'^ 
That  souls  dwell  in  the  Galaxy  was  a  thought  familiar  to 
the  Pythagoreans,  who  gave  it  on  their  master's  word  that 
the  souls  that  crowd  there  descend,  and  appear  to  men  as 
dreams,"  and  to  the  Manichreans  whose  fancy  transferred 
pure  souls  to  this  'column  of  light,'  whence  they  could 


>  Taylor,  '  New  Zealand,'  p.  363. 

'  Stanbridge,  1.  c. ;  Charlevoix,  vol.vl.p  148 ;  Leema,  'Lapland,'in  Pinker- 
ton,  vol.  i.  p.  411.  The  name  of  the  Bear  occurring  in  North  America  in 
connexion  with  the  stars  of  the  Great  and  Little  Bear  (Charlevoix,  1.  c. ; 
Cotton  Mather  in  Schoolcraft,  '  Tribes,'  vol.  i.  p.  284)  has  long  been  remarked 
on  (Goguet,  vol.  i.  p.  262  ;  vol.  ii.  p.  366,  but  with  reference  to  Greenland, 
see  Cranz,  p.  294).  See  observations  on  the  history  of  the  Aryan  name  in 
Max  MiiUer,  'Lectures,'  2nd  series,  p.  361. 

'  Casalis,  p.  196  ;  Waitz,  vol.  ii.  p.  191. 

*  Long's  Exp.  vol.  i.  p.  288  ;  Schoolcraft,  part  i.  p.  272  ;  Le  Jeune  in  '  Rel. 
des  Jtn.  de  la  Nouvelle  Fiance,'  1634,  p.  18  ;  Loskiel,  part  i.  p.  35  ;  J.  G. 
MiiHer,  p.  63. 

»  Hanusch,  pp.  272,  407,  415. 

«  Porphyr.  de  Antro  Nympharum,  28  ;  Macrob.  de  Somn.  Scip.  i.  12. 


^ 


y 


\ 


'A 


860 


MYTHOLOGY. 


^. 

|1 

l\^- 

i!B!l 

e  V  'if-' 

;i 

I. 

t 

>.. 

k 

Kt. 

'% 

f 

%> 

'iSii 

r, 

«} 

1 

•ilitl 

E- 

,ii 

«          ,. 

l!^L 

^    :i^ 

.11; 

'^  i 

•■  'iifcii 

fc     5': 

'1*1! 

ii.'^ii 

MM! 

come  down  to  earth  and  again  return.^  It  is  a  fall  from 
such  ideas  of  the  Galaxy  to  the  Siamese  '  Road  of  the 
White  Elephant,'  the  Spaniards'  '  Road  of  Santiago,'  or 
the  Turkish  '  Pilgrims'  Road,'  and  a  still  lower  fall  to  the 
'  Straw  Road '  of  the  Syrian,  the  Persian,  and  the  Turk, 
who  thus  compare  it  with  their  lanes  littered  with  the 
morsels  of  straw  that  fall  from  the  nets  they  carry  it  in.'* 
But  of  all  the  fancies  which  have  attached  themselves  to 
the  celestial  road,  we  at  home  have  the  quaintest.  Passing 
//  along  the  short  and  crooked  way  from  St.  Paul's  to  Cannon 
/  Street,  one  thinks  to  how  small  a  remnant  has  shrunk  the 
name  of  the  great  street  of  the  Wsetlingas,  which  in  old 
days  ran  from  Dover  through  London  into  Wales.  But 
there  is  a  Watling  Street  in  heaven  as  well  as  on  earth, 
once  familiar  to  Englishmen,  though  now  almost  forgotten 
even  in  local  dialect.      Chaucer  thus  speaks  of  it  in  his 

'  House  of  Fame : ' — 

• 

'  Lo  there  (quod  he)  cast  up  thine  eye 
Se  yondir,  lo,  the  Galaxie, 
The  whiche  men  clepe  The  Milky  Way, 
For  it  is  white,  and  some  parfay, 
Ycallin  it  han  Watlynge  strete.'* 

Turning  from  the  mythology  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  a 
glance  over  other  districts  of  nature-myth  will  afford  fresh 
evidence  that  such  legend  has  its  early  home  within  the 
precincts  of  savage  culture.  It  is  thus  with  the  myths  of 
the  Winds.  The  New  Zealanders  tell  how  Maui  can  ride 
upon  the  other  Winds  or  imprison  them  in  their  caves,  but 
he  cannot  catch  the  West  Wind  nor  find  its  cave  to  roll  a 


'  Beausobre,  'Hist,  de  Manich^e,'  vol.  ii.  p.  513. 

^  Bastian,  '  Oestl.  Asien,'  vol.  iii.  p.  341 ;  '  Chronique  de  Tabari,'  tr. 
Dubeux,  p.  24  ;  Grimm,  *  D.  M.'  p.  330,  &c. 

*  Chaucer,  'Houseof  Fame,' ii.  427.  With  reference  to  questions  of  Aryan 
mythology  illustrated  by  the  savage  galaxy-myths,  see  Pictet,  'Origines,' 
part  ii.  p.  582,  &c.  Mr.  J.  Jeremiah  informs  me  that  'Watling  Street,'  is 
still  (1871)  a  name  for  the  Milky  Way  in  Scotland  ;  see  also  his  paper  on 
'Welsh  names  of  the  Milky  Way,'  Philological  Soc.,  Nov.  17,  1871.  The 
corresponding  name  '  London  Road    is  used  in  Suffolk. 


a  fall  from 
)ad  of  the 
mtiago,'  or 
•  fall  to  the 
the  Turk, 
I  with  the 
sarvy  it  in.'^ 
jmselvea  to 
t.  Passing 
I  to  Cannon 
shrunk  the 
hich  in  old 
lales.  But 
IB  on  earth, 
st  forgotten 
)f  it  in  his 


ly  bodies,  a 
afford  fresh 
-within  the 
le  myths  of 
ui  can  ride 
caves,  but 
re  to  roll  a 


le  Tabari,'  tr. 

■tions  of  Aryan 
«t,  'Origines,' 
ling  Street,'  is 
his  paper  on 
7,  lb71.    The 


MYTHOLOOY. 


861 


stone  against  the  mouth,  and  thfirefore  it  prevails,  yet 
from  time  to  time  he  all  but  overtakes  it,  and  hiding  in 
its  cave  for  shelter  it  dies  away.^  Such  is  the  fancy  in 
•  vissic  poetry  of  Aeolus  holding  the  prisoned  winds  in  his 
<»'.  ngeou  cave  : — 

'  Hie  vasto  rex  Aeolus  antro 
Lnctantes  ventos,  tempestatesque  sonoi-as 
Imperio  premit,  ac  vinclis  et  carcere  fraenat."^ 

The  myth  of  the  Four  Winds  is  developed  among  the 
native  races  of  America  with  a  range  and  vigour  and  beauty 
scarcely  rivalled  elsewhere  in  the  mythology  of  the  world. 
Episodes  belonging  to  this  branch  of  Red  Indian  folklore 
are  collected  in  Schoolcraft's  'Algic  Researches,'  and  thence 
rendered  with  admirable  taste  and  sympathy,  though  un- 
fortunately not  with  proper  truth  to  the  originals,  in  Long- 
fellow's master-piece,  the  '  Song  of  Hiawatha.'  The  West 
Wind  Mudjekeewis  is  Kabeyun,  Father  of  the  Winds, 
Wabun  is  the  East  Wind,  Shawondasee  the  South  Wind, 
Kabibonokka  the  North  Wind.  But  there  is  another 
mighty  wind  not  belonging  to  the  mystic  quaternion, 
Manabozho  the  North- West  Wind,  therefore  described  with 
mythic  appropriateness  as  the  unlawful  ihild  of  Kabeyun. 
The  fierce  North  Wind,  Kabibonokka,  in  vain  strives  to 
force  Shingebis,  the  lingering  diver-bi-d,  from  his  warm 
and  happy  wintei  - 1  odge  ;  and  the  lazy  South  Wind,  Sha- 
wondasee, sighs  foi  t'  «  maiden  of  the  prairie  with  her  sunny 
hair,  till  it  turns  +o  silvery  white,  and  as  he  breathes  upon 
her,  the  prairie  dandelion  has  vanished.^  Man  naturally 
divides  his  horizon  into  four  quarters,  before  and  behind,  y- 
right  and  left,  and  thus  comes  to  fancy  the  world  a  square, 
and  to  refer  the  winds  to  its  four  corners.  Dr.  Brinton,  in 
his  '  Myths  of  the  New  World,'  has  well  traced  from  these 
ideas  the  growth  of  legend  after  legend  among  the  native 


•  Yato,  '  New  Zealand,'  p.  144,  see  Ellis,  'Polyn.  Res.'  vol.  ii.  p.  417. 
''  Virg.  Aeneid,  i.  56  ;  ixl  mer,  Odyss.  x.  1. 

=  Schoolcraft,  'Algic  Res.'  vol.  i.  p.  200  ;  vol.  ii.  pp.  122,  214  ;  'Indian 
Tribes,'  part  iii.  p.  S24. 


/ 


i# 


862 


MYTHOLOOY. 


i 


i 


I 

It 

V  i 


«HI! 


races  of  America,  where  four  brother  heroes,  or  mythic  an- 
ccHtors  or  divine  patrons  of  mankind,  prove,  on  closer  view, 
to  be  in  personal  shap^  the  Four  Winds. ^ 

The  Vedic  hymns  i"  i.'.o  Maruts,  the  Stor.n  Winds,  who 
tear  asunder  the  forest  kings  and  make  th<  rc^ks  shiver, 
and  assume  again,  after  their  wont,  the  form  of  new-born 
babes,  the  mythic  feats  of  the  child  Hermes  in  the  Homeric 
hymn,  the  legendary  birth  of  Boreas  from  Astraios  and  Eos, 
Starry  Heaven  and  Dawn,  work  out,  on  Aryan  ground, 
mythic  conceptions  that  Red  Indian  tale-tellers  could 
understand  and  rival.'*  The  peasant  who  keeps  up  in  fire- 
side talk  the  memory  of  the  Wild  Huntsman,  Wodejager, 
the  Grand  Veneur  of  Fontainebleau,  Heme  the  Hunter  of 
Windsor  Forest,  has  almost  lost  the  significance  of  this 
grand  old  storm-myth.  By  mere  force  of  tradition,  the 
name  of  the  '  Wish '  or  '  Wush '  hounds  of  the  Wild 
Huntsman  has  been  preserved  through  the  west  of  England ; 
the  words  must  for  ages  past  have  lost  their  meaning  among 
the  country  folk,  though  we  may  plainly  recognize  in  them 
Woden's  ancient  well-known  name,  old  German  '  Wunsch.' 
As  of  old,  the  Heaven-god  drives  the  clouds  before  him  in 
raging  tempest  across  the  sky,  while,  safe  within  the  cottage 
walls,  the  tale-teller  unwittingly  describes  in  personal 
legendary  shape  this  same  Wild  Hunt  of  the  Storm.^ 

It  has  many  a  time  occurred  to  the  savage  poet  or  philo- 
sopher to  realize  the  thunder,  or  its  cause,  in  myths  of  a 
Thunder-bird.  Of  this  wondrous  creature  North  American 
legend  has  much  to  tell.  He  is  the  bird  of  the  great 
Manitu,  as  the  eagle  is  of  Zeus,  or  he  is  even  the  great 
Manitu  himself  incarnate.    The  Assiniboins  not  only  know 

'  Brinton,  '  Myths  of  the  New  World,'  ch.  iii. 

'  '  Rig-Voda,'  tr.  by  Max  Miiller,  vol.  i.  (Hymns  to  Maruts) ;  Welcker, 
'  Griech.  GOtterl.' vol.  iii.  p.  67  ;  Cox,  '  Mythology  of  Aryan  Nations,'  vol.  ii. 
ch.  V. 

*  Grimm,  '  D.  M.'  pp.  126,  59!),  894  ;  Hunt,  '  Pop.  Rom.'  1st  ser.  p.  xix. ; 
Baring-Gould,  'Book  of  Werewolves,'  p.  101  ;  see  'Myths  of  the  Middle 
Ages,' p.  25  ;  Wuttke,  'Deutsche  Volksaberglaube,' pp.  18,236;  Monnier, 
'  Traditions,'  pp.  75,  &c.,  741,  747. 


mythic  an- 
jloser  view, 

Vinds,  who 
"ks  shiver, 
f  new-born 
he  Homeric 
OS  and  E6s, 
an  jTTound, 
jUers   could 
s  up  in  fire- 
Wodejager, 
3  Hunter  of 
,nce  of  this 
adition,  the 
t    the  Wild 
of  England; 
ming  among 
lize  in  them 
Q  '  Wunsch.' 
sfore  him  in 
the  cottage 
[in  personal 
orm.^ 

let  or  philo- 
myths  of  a 
,h  American 
if  the  great 
|n  the  great 
only  know 


its) ;  Welcker, 
Ifations,'  vol.  ii. 

[st  ser.  p.  xix. ; 
1  of  the  Middle 
|236 ;  Monnier, 


MYTTTOLOOY. 


363 


of  his  existence,  but  have  even  seen  him,  and  in  the  far 
north  the  story  is  told  how  he  created  thfj  world.  The 
Ahts  of  Vancouver'fi  Island  talk  of  Tootooch,  the  mighty 
bird  dwelling  aloft  and  far  away,  the  flap  of  whoHo  wings 
makes  the  thunder  (Toot  i),  and  his  tongue  is  the  forked 
lightning.  There  w  ro  once  four  of  those  birds  in  the  land, 
and  they  fed  on  whaics;  but  the  great  deity  Quawteaht, 
entering  in*  »  n        '>^e   ou  iced  one  thunder-bird  after  an- 


other to  swoop  u 
plunging  to       '  ^ 
three  of  thei 
and  flew  to  the   -i 


id  seize  him  with  its  talons,  when 
.  'if  'he  sea  he  drowned  it.  Thus 
In  t  the  last  one  spread  his  wings 
ight  where  he  has  since  remained. 
The  meaning  of  tii  tory  may  probably  be  that  thunder- 
storms come  especially  from  one  of  the  four  quarters  of 
heaven.  Of  such  myths,  perhaps  that  told  among  the 
Dacotas  is  the  quaintest :  Thunder  is  a  large  bird,  they 
say  :  hence  its  velocity.  The  old  bird  begins  the  thunder ; 
its  rumbling  noise  is  caused  by  an  immense  quantity  of 
young  birds,  or  thunders,  who  continue  it,  hence  the  long 
duration  of  the  peals.  The  Indian  says  it  is  the  young 
birds,  or  thunders,  that  do  the  mischief;  they  are  like  the 
young  mischievous  men  who  will  not  listen  to  good  counsel. 
The  old  thunder  or  bird  is  wise  and  good,  and  does  not 
kill  anybody,  nor  do  any  kind  of  mischief.  Descending 
southward  to  Central  America,  there  is  found  mention 
of  the  bird  Voc,  the  messenger  of  Hurakan,  the  Tempest- 
god  (whose  name  has  been  adopted  in  European  languages 
as  huracano,  ouragan,  hurricane)  of  the  Lightning  and 
of  the  Thunder.  So  among  Caribs,  Brazilians,  Hervey 
Islanders  and  Karens,  Bechuanas  and  Basutos,  we  find 
legends  of  a  flapping  or  flashing  Thunder-bird,  which 
seem  simply  to  translate  into  myth  the  thought  of  thunder 
and  lightning  descending  from  the  upper  regions  of  the 
air,  the  home  of  the  eagle  and  the  vulture.^ 

'  Pr.  Max  V.  Wied,  'Reise  in  N.  A.'  vol.  i.  pp.  446,  455  ;  vol.  ii.  pp.  152, 
223  ;  Sir  Alex.  Mackenzie,  'Voyages,'  p.  exvii. ;  Sproat,  'Scenes  of  Savage 
Life'  (Vancouver's  I.),  pp.  177,  213  ;  Irving,  'Astoria,'  vol.  ii.  ch.  xxii. ;  Le 


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MYTHOLOGY. 


I. 


fc,  *^ 


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ii 


The  Heaven-god  dwells  in  the  regions  of  the  sky,  and 
thus  what  form  could  be  fitter  for  him  and  for  his  messengers 
than  the  likeness  of  a  bird  ?  Eut  to  cause  the  ground  to 
quake  beneath  our  feet,  a  being  of  quite  different  nature  is 
needed,  and  accordingly  the  office  of  supporting  the  solid 
earth  is  given  in  various  countries  to  various  monstrous 
creatures,  human  or  animal  in  character,  who  make  their 
office  manifest  from  time  to  time  by  a  shake  given  in 
negligence  or  sport  or  anger  to  their  burden.  Wherever 
earthquakes  are  felt,  we  are  likely  to  find  a  version  of  the 
great  myth  of  the  Earth-bearer.  Thus  in  Polynesia  the 
Tongans  say  that  Maui  upholds  the  earth  on  his  prostrate 
body,  and  when  he  tries  to  turn  over  into  an  easier  posture 
there  is  an  earthquake,  and  the  people  shout  and  beat  the 
ground  with  sticks  to  make  him  lie  still.  Another  version 
forms  part  of  the  interesting  myth  lately  mentioned,  which 
connects  the  under- world  whither  the  sun  descends  at  night, 
with  the  region  of  subterranean  volcanic  fire  and  of  earth- 
quake. The  old  Maui  lay  by  his  fire  in  the  dead-land  of 
Bulotu,  when  his  grandson  Maui  came  down  by  the  cavern 
entrance  ;  the  young  Maui  carried  off  the  fire,  they  wrestled, 
the  old  Maui  was  overcome,  and  has  lain  there  bruised  and 
drowsy  ever  since,  underneath  the  earth,  which  quakes 
when  he  turns  over  in  his  sleep.^  In  Celebes  we  hear  of 
the  world- supporting  Hog,  who  rubs  himself  against  a  tree, 
and  then  there  is  an  earthquake.^  Among  the  Indians  of 
North  America,  it  is  said  that  earthquakes  come  of  the 
movement  of  the  great  world-bearing  Tortoise.  Now  this 
Tortoise  seems  but  a  mythic  picture  of  the  Earth  itself, 


Jeune,  op.  cit.  1684,  p.  26  ;  Schoolcraft,  '  Indian  Tribes,'  part  iii.  p.  233, 
*  Algic  Res.'  vol.  ii.  pp.  114-6,  199  ;  Catlin,  vol.  ii.  p.  164  ;  Brasseur,  '  Popol 
Vuh,'  p.  71  and  Index,  'Hurakan  ;'  J.  G.  Muller,  '  Amer.  XJrrel.'  pp.  222. 
271 ;  Ellis,  '  Polyn.  Res.'  vol.  ii.  p.  417  ;  Jno.  Williams, '  Missionary  Enter- 
prise,' p.  93  ;  Mason,  1.  c.  p.  217  :  Moffat, '  South  Africa,'  p.  338  ;  Casalis, 
'  Basutos,'  p.  266  ;  Callaway,  'Religion  of  Amazulu,'  p.  119. 

»  Mariner,  'Tonga  Is."  vol.  ii.  p.  120;  S.  S.  Farmer,  'Tonga,'  p.  185  ; 
Schirren,  pp.  35-7. 

"  '  Journ.  Ind.  Archip.'  vol.  ii.  p.  837. 


le  sky,  and 
messengers 
3  ground  to 
it  nature  is 
ig  the  solid 

monstrous 
make  their 
:e  given  in 

Wherever 
sion  of  the 
(lynesia  the 
is  prostrate 
sier  posture 
nd  beat  the 
bher  version 
oned,  which 
ids  at  night, 
ad  of  earth- 
lead-land  of 
1  the  cavern 
ey  wrestled, 
bruised  and 
lich  quakes 

we  hear  of 
ainst  a  tree, 

Indians  of 

lome  of  the 

Now  this 

larth  itself, 


art  iii.  p.  233, 
asseur,  'Popol 
Frrel.'  pp.  222. 
sionary  Enter- 
338  ;  Casalis, 

anga,'  p.  135  ; 


MYTHOLOaT. 


365 


and  thus  the  story  only  expresses  in  mythic  phrase  the  very 
fact  that  the  earth  quakes ;  the  meaning  is  but  one  degree 
less  distinct  than  among  the  Caribs,  who  say  when  there  is 
an  earthquake  that  their  Mother  Earth  is  dancing.^  Among 
the  higher  races  of  the  continent,  such  ideas  remain  little 
changed  in  nature ;  the  Tlascalans  said  that  the  tired  world- 
supporting  deities  shifting  their  burden  to  a  new  relay 
caused  the  earthquake  ;^  the  Chibchas  said  it  was  their 
god  Chibchacum  moving  the  earth  from  shoulder  to 
shoulder.^  The  myth  ranges  in  Asia  through  as  wide  a 
stretch  of  culture.  The  Kamchadals  tell  of  Tuil  the  Earth- 
quake-god, who  sledges  below  ground,  and  when  his  dog 
shakes  off  fleas  or  snow  there  is  an  earthquake  ;*  Ta  Ywa, 
the  solar  hero  of  the  Karens,  set  Shie-oo  beneath  the  earth 
to  carry  it,  and  there  is  an  earthquake  when  he  moves.^ 
The  world-bearing  elephants  of  the  Hindus,  the  world- 
supporting  frog  of  the  Mongol  Lamas,  the  world-bull  of  the 
Moslems,  the  gigantic  Omophore  of  the  Manichsean  cosmo- 
logy, are  all  creatures  who  carry  the  earth  on  their  backs  or 
heads,  and  shake  it  when  they  stretch  or  shift."  Thus  in 
European  mythology  the  Scandinavian  Loki,  strapped  down 
with  thongs  of  iron  in  his  subterranean  cavern,  writhes 
when  the  overhanging  serpent  drops  venom  on  him ;  or 
Prometheus  struggles  beneath  the  earth  to  break  his  bonds ; 
or  the  Lettish  Drebkuls  or  Poseidon  the  Earth-shaker 
makes  the  ground  rock  beneath  men's  feet.'  Froixi 
thorough  myths  of  imagination  such  as  most  of  these,  it 
may  be  sometimes  possible  to  distinguish  philosophic  myths 
like  them  in  form,  but  which  appear  to  be  attempts  at 


»  J.  G.  Miiller,  '  Amer.  Urrolig.'  pp.  01,  122. 
'  Brasseur,  '  Mexique,'  vol.  iii.  p.  482. 
3  Pouchet,  '  Plurality  of  Races,'  p.  2. 

*  Stoller,  '  Kamtschatka,'  p.  267. 
'  Mason,  '  Karens,'  1.  c.  p.  182. 

•  Bell,  '  Tr.  in  Asia,'  in  Pinkerton,  vol.  vii.  p.  369  ;  Bastian,  '  Oestl.  Asien,' 
vol.  ii.  p.  168  ;  Lane,  'Thousand  and  one  Nights,' vol.  i.  p.  21 ;  see  Latham, 
'Descr.  Eth.'  vol.  ii.  p.  171;  Beausobre,  'Manichee,'  vol.  i.  p.  243. 

'  Edda,  '  Gylfaginning,'  50 ;  Grimm,  '  D.  M.'  p.  777,  &c. 


ir- 


366 


MYTHOLOGY. 


r 

r 
m 
I 

k 
» 

I 

ti. 

1^. 


,1|      '»IJ 


serious  explanation  without  even  a  metaphor.  The  Japanese 
think  that  earthquakes  are  caused  by  huge  whales  creeping 
underground,  having  been  probably  led  to  this  idea  by 
finding  the  fossil  bones  which  seem  the  remains  of  such 
subterranean  I  monsters,  just  as  we  know  that  the  Siberians 
who  find  in  the  ground  the  mammoth-bones  and  tusks, 
account  for  them  as  belonging  to  huge  burrowing  beasts, 
and  by  force  of  this  belief,  have  brought  themselves  to  think 
they  can  sometimes  see  the  earth  heave  and  sink  as  the 
monsters  crawl  below.  Thus,  in  investigating  the  earth- 
quake-myths of  the  world,  it  appears  that  two  processes, 
the  translation  into  mythic  language  of  the  phenomenon 
itself,  and  the  crude  scientific  theory  to  account  for  it  by  a 
real  moving  animal  underground,  may  result  in  legends  of 
very  striking  similarity.^ 

f  In  thus  surveying  the  mythic  wonders  of  heaven  and 
earth,  sun,  moon,  and  stars,  wind,  thunder,  and  earthquake, 
it  is  possible  to  set  out  in  investigation  under  conditions  of 
actual  certainty.  So  long  as  such  beings  as  Heaven  or  Sun 
are  consciously  talked  of  in  mythic  language,  the  meaning 
of  their  legends  is  open  to  no  question,  and  the  actions 
ascribed  to  them  will  as  a  rule  be  natural  and  apposite.  But 
when  the  phenomena  of  nature  take  a  more  ant '  amorphic 
form,  and  become  identified  with  personal  gc  .nd  heroes, 
and  when  in  after  times  these  beings,  losing  their  first  con- 
sciousness of  origin,  become  centres  round  which  floating 
fancies  cluster,  then  their  sense  becomes  obscure  and  cor- 
rupt, and  the  consistency  of  their  earlier  character  must  no 
longer  be  demanded.  In  fact,  the  unreasonable  expectation 
of  such  consistency  in  nature-myths,  after  they  have  passed 
into  what  may  be  called  their  heroic  stage,  is  one  of  the 
mythologist's  most  damaging  errors.  The  present  exami- 
nation of  nature-myths  has  mostly  taken  them  in  their 
primitive  and  unmistakable  condition,  and  has  only  been 
in  some  degree  extended  to  include  closely-corresponding 

*  Kaempfer,  'Japan,'  in  Pinkerton,  vol.  vii.  p.  684  ;  see  mammoth-myths 
in  '  Early  Hist,  of  Mankind,'  p.  315. 


e  Japanese 
J8  creeping 
is  idea  by 
Ds  of  such 
!  Siberians 
Eind  tusks, 
ing  beasts, 
es  to  think 
ink  as  the 
the  earth- 
>  processes, 
henomenon 
for  it  by  a 
legends  of 

leaven  and 
3arthquake, 
)nditions  of 
iven  or  Sun 
le  meaning 
the  actions 
osite.  But 
omorphic 

,nd  heroes, 
ir  first  con- 
ich  floating 
re  and  cor- 
ter  must  no 
expectation 
lave  passed 

one  of  the 
sent  exami- 
m  in  their 
J  only  been 
rresponding 

mmoth-myths 


MYTHOLOGY. 


367 


legends  in  a  less  easily  interpretable  state.  It  has  lain 
beyond  my  scope  to  enter  into  any  systematic  discussion  of 
the  views  of  Grimm,  Grote,  Max  Miiller,  Kuhn,  Schirren, 
Cox,  Br^al,  Dasent,  Kelly,  and  other  mythologists.  Even 
the  outlines  here  sketched  out  have  been  purposely  left 
without  filling  in  surrounding  detail  which  might  confuse 
their  shape,  although  this  strictness  has  caused  the  neglect 
of  many  a  tempting  hint  to  work  out  episode  after  episode, 
by  tracing  their  relation  to  the  myths  of  far-oflT  times  and 
lands.  It  has  rather  been  my  object  to  bring  prominently 
into  view  the  nature-mythology  of  the  lower  races,  that  their 
clear  and  fresh  mythic  conceptions  may  serve  as  a  basis  in 
studying  the  nature-myths  of  the  world  at  large.  The 
evidence  and  interpretation  here  brought  forward,  imperfect 
as  they  are,  seem  to  countenance  a  strong  opinion  as  to  the 
historical  development  of  legends  which  describe  in  personal 
shape  the  life  of  nature.  The  state  of  mind  to  which  such 
imaginative  fictions  belong  is  found  in  full  vigour  in  the 
savage  condition  of  mankind,  its  growth  and  inheritance 
continue  into  the  higher  culture  of  barbarous  or  half-civi- 
lized nations,  and  at  last  in  the  civilized  world  its  effects 
pass  more  and  more  from  realized  belief  into  fanciful, 
afiected,  and  even  artificial  poetry. 


f, 
« 


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k 

f 

I), 


4  % 


CHAPTER  X. 

MYTHOLOGY  (cofitinued). 

Pliiloaophical  Myths  :  inferences  become  pseudo- history — Geological  Myths 
— Effect  of  doctrine  of  Miracles  on  Mythology — Magnetic  Mountain 
— Myths  of  relation  of  Apes  to  Men  by  development  or  degeneration 
— Ethnological  import  of  myths  of  Ape-men,  Men  with  tails,  Men  of 
the  woods— Myths  of  EiTor,  Perversion,  and  Exaggeration:  stories  of 
Giants,  Dwarfs,  and  Monstrous  Tribes  of  men — Fanciful  explanatory 
Myths— Myths  attached  to  legendary  or  historical  Personages — Etymo- 
logical Myths  on  names  of  places  and  persons — Eponymic  Myths  on 
names  of  tribes,  nations,  countries,  &c. ;  their  ethnological  import — 
Pragmatic  Myths  by  realization  of  metaphors  and  ideas — Allegory — 
Beast-Fable —Conclusion 

Although  the  attempt  to  reduce  to  rule  and  system  the 
whole  domain  of  mythology  would  as  yet  be  rash  and  pre- 
mature, yet  the  piecemeal  invasion  of  one  mythic  province 
after  another  proves  feasible  and  profitable.  Having  dis- 
cussed the  theory  of  nature-myths,  it  is  worth  while  to  gain 
in  other  directions  glimpses  of  the  crude  and  child-like 
thought  of  manliind,  not  arranged  in  abstract  doctrines, 
but  embodied  by  mythic  fancy.  We  shall  find  the  result  in 
masses  of  legends,  full  of  interest  as  bearing  on  the  early 
history  of  opinion,  and  which  may  be  roughly  classified 
under  the  following  headings  :  myths  philosophical  or  ex- 
planatory ;  myths  based  on  real  descriptions  misunderstood, 
exaggerated,  or  perverted  •  myths  attributing  infex'red  events 
to  legendary  or  historical  personages ;  myths  based  on  reali- 
zation of  fanciful  metaphor ;  and  myths  made  or  adapted  to 
convey  moral  or  social  or  political  instruction. 

Man's  craving  to  know  the  causes  at  work  in  each  event 
he  witnesses,  the  reasons  why  each  state  of  things  he  sur- 


Ei^y 


jological  Myths 
letic  Mountain 
ir  degeneration 
h  tails,  Men  of 
tion :  stories  of 
ul  explanatory 
nnges— Etymo- 
ymic  Myths  on 
jgical  import — 
(as— Allegory— 

[  system  the 
ish  and  pre- 
hic  province 
Having  dis- 
srhile  to  gain 
d  child-like 
et  doctrines, 
the  result  in 
on  the  early 
ily  classified 
)hical  or  ex- 
sunderstood, 
ferred  events 
ised  on  reali- 
)r  adapted  to 

n  each  event 
lings  he  sur- 


MYTHOLOGY. 


369 


vsys  is  such  as  it  is  and  no  other,  is  no  product  of  high 
civilization,  but  a  characteristic  of  his  race  down  to  its 
lowest  stages.  Among  rude  savages  it  is  already  an  intel- 
lectual appetite  whose  satisfaction  claims  many  of  the  mo- 
ments not  engrossed  by  war  or  sport,  food  or  sleep.  Even 
to  the  Botocudo  or  Australian,  scientific  speculation  has  its 
germ  in  actual  experience :  he  has  learnt  to  do  definite  acts 
that  definite  results  may  follow,  to  see  other  acts  done  and 
their  results  following  in  course,  to  make  inference  from  the 
result  back  to  the  previous  action,  and  to  find  his  inference 
verified  in  fact.  When  one  day  he  has  seen  a  deer  or  a 
kangaroo  leave  footprints  in  the  soft  ground,  and  the  next 
day  he  has  found  new  footprints  and  inferred  that  such  an 
animal  made  them,  and  has  followed  up  the  track  and 
killed  the  game,  then  he  knows  that  he  has  reconstructed  a 
history  of  past  events  by  inference  from  their  results.  But 
in  the  early  stages  of  knowledge  the  confusion  is  extreme 
between  actual  tradition  of  events,  and  ideal  reconstruction 
of  them.  To  this  day  there  go  about  the  world  endless 
stories  told  as  matter  of  known  reality,  but  which  a  critical 
examination  shows  to  be  mere  inferences,  often  utterly  illu- 
sory ones,  from  facts  which  have  stimulated  the  invention  of 
some  curious  enquirer.  Thus  a  writer  in  the  Asiatick  Re- 
searches of  some  eighty  years  ago  relates  the  following 
account  of  the  Andaman  islanders,  as  a  historical  fact  of 
which  he  had  been  informed :  '  Shortly  after  the  Portu- 
guese had  discovered  the  passage  to  India  round  the  Cape 
of  Good  Hope,  one  of  their  ships,  on  board  of  which  were 
a  number  of  Mozambique  negroes,  was  lost  on  the  Andaman 
islands,  which  were  till  then  uninhabited.  The  blacks  re- 
mained in  the  island  and  settled  it :  the  Europeans  made  a 
small  shallop  in  which  they  sailed  to  Pegu.'  Many  readers 
must  have  had  their  interest  excited  by  this  curious  story, 
but  at  the  first  touch  of  fact  it  dissolves  into  a  philosophic 
myth,  made  by  the  easy  transition  from  what  might  have 
been  to  what  was.  So  far  from  the  islands  having  been 
uninhabited  at  the  time  of  Vasco  de  Gama's  voyage,  their 
VOL.  I,  B  b 


370 


MYTHOLOGY. 


itc  h,  >; 


population  of  naked  blacks  with  frizzled  hair  had  been  de- 
scribed six  hundred  years  earlier,  and  the  story,  which 
sounded  reasonable  to  people  puzzled  by  the  appearance  of 
a  black  population  in  the  Andaman  islands,  is  of  course 
repudiated  by  ethnologists  aware  of  the  wide  distribution 
of  the  negroid  Papuans,  really  so  distinct  from  any  race  of 
African  negroes.'  Not  long  since,  I  met  with  a  very  perfect 
myth  of  this  kind.  In  a  brick  field  near  London,  there  had 
been  found  a  number  of  fossil  elephant  bones,  and  soon 
afterwards  a  story  was  in  circulation  in  the  neighbourhood 
somewhat  in  this  shape :  '  A  few  years  ago,  one  of  Womb- 
well's  caravans  was  here,  an  elephant  died,  and  they  buried 
him  in  the  field,  and  now  the  scientific  gentlemen  have 
found  his  bones,  and  think  they  have  got  a  prse-Adamite 
elephant.'  It  seemed  almost  cruel  to  spoil  this  ingenious 
myth  by  pointing  out  that  such  a  prize  as  a  living  mam- 
moth was  beyond  the  resources  even  of  Wombwell's  me- 
nagerie. But  so  exactly  does  such  a  story  explain  the  facts 
to  minds  not  troubled  with  nice  distinctions  between  ex- 
isting and  extinct  species  of  elephants,  that  it  was  on 
another  occasion  invented  elsewhere  under  similar  circum- 
stances. This  was  at  Oxford,  where  Mr.  Buckland  found 
the  story  of  the  Wombwell's  caravan  and  dead  elephant 
current  to  explain  a  similar  find  of  fossil  bones.^  Such 
explanations  of  the  finding  of  fossils  are  easily  devised  and 
used  to  be  freely  made,  as  when  fossil  bones  found  in  the 
Alps  were  set  down  to  Hannibal's  elephants,  or  when  a 
petrified  oyster-shell  near  the  Mount  Cenis  sets  Voltaire 
reflecting  on  the  crowd  of  pilgrims  on  their  way  to  Rome, 
or  when  theologians  supposed  such  shells  on  mountains  to 
have  been  left  on  their  slopes  and  summits  by  a  rising  deluge. 
Such  theoretical  explanations  are  unimpeachable  in  their 
philosophic  spirit,  until  further  observation  may  prove  them 


'  Hamilton  in  '  As.  Res.'  vol.  ii.  p.  344  ;  Colebrooke,  ibid.  vol.  iv.  p.  385  ; 
Earl  in  'Journ.  Ind.  Archip.' vol.  iii.  p.  682  ;  vol.  iv.  p.  9.  See  Renaudot, 
'Travels  of  Two  Mahommedans,'  in  Pinkerton,  vol.  vii.  p.  183. 

^  F.  Buckland,  '  Curiosities  of  Nat.  Hist.'  8rd  series,  vol.  ii.  p.  39. 


kihMM 


MYTHOLOGY. 


371 


ad  been  de- 
3tory,  which 
ppearance  of 
is  of  course 
distribution 
1  any  race  of 
,  very  perfect 
on,  there  had 
es,  and  soon 
lighbourhood 
le  of  Womb- 
i  they  buried 
itlemen  have 
prse -Adamite 
tiis  ingenious 
living  mam- 
mbwell's  me- 
)lain  the  facts 
i  between  ex- 
Eit  it  was  on 
tnilar  circum- 
ckland  found 
lead  elephant 
jones.'^     Such 
y  devised  and 
J  found  in  the 
s,  or  when  a 
sets  Voltaire 
way  to  Rome, 
mountains  to 
rising  deluge, 
lable  in  their 
Ely  prove  them 

d.  vol.  iv.  p.  385  ; 
See  Ronaudot. 
).  183. 
1.  ii.  p.  39. 


to  be  unsound.  Their  disastrous  effect  on  the  historic 
conscience  of  mankind  only  begins  when  the  inference  is 
turned  upside  down,  to  be  told  as  a  recorded  fact. 

In  this  connexion  brief  notice  may  be  taken  of  the  doc- 
trine of  miracles  in  its  special  bearing  on  mythology.  The 
mythic  wonder-episodes  related  by  a  savage  tale-teller,  the 
amazing  superhuman  feats  of  his  gods  and  heroes,  are  often 
to  his  mind  miracles  in  the  original  popular  sense  of  the 
word,  that  is,  they  are  strange  and  marvellous  events ;  but 
they  are  not  to  his  mind  miracles  in  a  frequent  modern 
sense  of  the  word,  that  is,  they  are  not  violations  or  super- 
sessions of  recognized  laws  of  nature.  Exceptio  probat 
regulam  ;  to  acknowledge  anything  as  an  exception  is  to 
imply  the  rule  it  departs  from ;  but  the  savage  recognizes 
neither  rule  nor  exception.  Yet  a  European  hearer,  brought 
up  to  use  a  different  canon  of  evidence,  will  calmly  reject 
this  savage's  most  revered  ancestral  traditions,  simply  on 
the  ground  that  they  relate  events  which  are  impossible. 
The  ordinary  standards  of  possibility,  as  applied  to  the 
credibility  of  tradition,  have  indeed  changed  vastly  in  the 
course  of  culture  through  its  savage,  barbaric,  and  civilized 
stages.  What  concerns  us  here  is  that  there  is  an  important 
department  of  legend  which  this  change  in  public  opinion 
generally  so  resistless,  left  to  a  great  extent  unaltered.  In 
the  middle  ages  the  long-accepted  practice  rose  to  its  height, 
of  allowing  the  mere  assertion  of  supernatural  influence  by 
angels  or  devils,  saints  or  sorcerers,  to  override  the  rules  of 
evidence  and  the  results  of  experience.  The  consequence 
was  that  the  doctrine  of  miracles  became  as  it  were  a  bridge 
along  which  mythology  travelled  from  the  lower  into  the 
higher  culture.  Principles  of  myth-formation  belonging 
properly  to  the  mental  state  of  the  savage,  were  by  its  aid 
continued  in  strong  action  in  the  civilized  world.  Mythic 
episodes  which  Europeans  would  have  rejected  contemptu- 
ously if  told  of  savage  deities  or  heroes,  only  required 
to  be  adapted  to  appropriate  local  details,  and  to  be  set 
forth  as  mii-acles  in  the  life  of  some    superhuman  per- 

B  b  2 


:  -'I 
I 


372 


MYTHOLOGY. 


J 


i: 


r.  fffr 


I,   ''  . 


•i!' 


■■«!  !; 


nonage,  to  obtain  as  of  old  a  place  of  credit  and  honour  in 
history. 

From  the  enormous  mass  of  available  instances  in  proof 
of  this  let  us  take  two  cases  belonging  to  the  class  of 
geological  myths.  The  first  is  the  well-known  legend  of 
St.  Patrick  and  the  serpents.  It  is  thus  given  by  Dr. 
Andrew  Poorde  in  his  description  of  Ireland  and  the  Irish 
in  Henry  VIII.'s  time.  'Yet  in  lerland  is  stupendyous 
thynges ;  for  there  is  neyther  Pyes  nor  venymus  wormes. 
There  is  no  Adder,  nor  Snake,  nor  Toode,  nor  Lyzerd,  nor 
no  Euyt,  nor  none  such  lyke.  I  haue  sene  stones  the  whiche 
haue  had  the  forme  and  shap  c  f  a  snake  and  other  venimus 
wormes.  And  the  people  of  the  countre  sayth  that  suche 
stones  were  wormes,  and  they  were  turned  into  stones  by  the 
power  of  God  and  the  prayers  of  saynt  Patryk.  And 
Englysh  marchauntes  of  England  do  fetch  of  the  erth  of 
Irlonde  to  caste  in  their  gardens,  to  kepe  out  and  to  kyll 
venimus  wormes.'  ^  In  treating  this  passage,  the  first  step 
is  to  separate  pieces  of  imported  foreign  myth,  belonging 
properly  not  to  Ireland,  but  to  islands  of  the  Mediterranean ; 
the  story  of  the  earth  of  the  island  of  Krete  being  fatal  to 
venomous  serpents  is  to  be  found  in  .^lian,^  and  St. 
Honoratus  clearing  the  snakes  from  his  island  (one  of  the 
Lerins  opposite  Cannes)  ■'  seems  to  take  precedence  of  the 
Irish  saint.  What  is  left  after  these  deductions  is  a  philo- 
sophic myth  accounting  for  the  existence  of  fossil  ammonites 
as  being  petrified  snakes,  to  which  myth  a  historical  position 
is  given  by  claiming  it  as  a  miracle,  and  ascribing  it  to  St. 
Patrick.  The  second  myth  is  valuable  for  the  historical  and 
geological  evidence  which  it  incidentally  preserves.  At 
the  celebrated  ruins  of  the  temple  of  Jupiter  Serapis  at 
Pozzuoli  the  ancient  Puteoli,  the  marble  columns,  encircled 
half-way  up  by  borings  of  lithodomi,  stand  to  prove  that  the 
ground  of  the  temple  must  have  been  formerly  submerged 

*  Andrew  Boorde, '  Introduction  of  Knowledge,'  ed.  by  F.  J.  Furnivall, 
Early  Eng.  Text  Soc.  1870,  p.  133. 
^  iElian,  De  Nat.  Animal,  v.  2,  see  8. 
^  Acta  Sanctorum  Bolland.  Jan.  xvi. 


-  lA" 


id  honour  in 

aces  in  proof 
the  class  of 
fvn  legend  of 
jiven  by  Dr. 
md  the  Irish 
stupendyous 
mus  wormes. 
r  Lyzerd,  nor 
es  the  whiche 
ither  venimus 
bh  that  suche 
stones  by  the 
Patryk.     And 
>f  the  erth  of 
it  and  to  kyll 
,  the  first  step 
?th,  belonging 
[editerranean ; 
being  fatal  to 
ian,^   and    St. 
id  (one  of  the 
jedence  of  the 
ons  is  a  philo- 
3sil  ammonites 
orieal  position 
ibing  it  to  St. 
historical  and 
preserves.     At 
ter  Serapis  at 
mns,  encircled 
prove  that  the 
rly  submerged 
jy  F.  J.  Furnivall, 


MYTHOLOGY. 


378 


many  feet  below  the  sea,  and  afterwards  upheaved  to  become 
again  dry  land.  History  is  remarkably  silent  as  to  the  events 
demonstrated  by  this  conclusive  geological  evidence ;  be- 
tween the  recorded  adornment  of  the  temple  by  Roman 
emperors  from  the  second  to  the  third  century,  and  the 
mention  of  its  existence  in  ruins  in  the  16th  century,  no 
documentary  information  was  till  lately  recognized.  It  has 
now  been  pointed  out  by  Mr.  Tuckett  that  a  passage  in  the 
Apocryphal  Acts  of  Peter  and  Paul,  dating  apparently  more 
or  less  before  the  end  of  the  9th  century,  mentions  the  sub- 
sidence of  the  temple,  ascribing  it  to  a  miracle  of  St.  Paul. 
The  legend  is  as  follows :  *  And  when  he  (Paul)  came  out  of 
Messina  he  sailed  to  Didymus,  and  remained  there  one  night. 
And  having  sailed  thence,  he  came  to  Pontiole  (Puteoli)  on 
the  second  day.  And  Dioscorus  the  shipmaster,  who  brought 
him  to  Syracuse,  sympathizing  with  Paul  because  he  had 
delivered  his  son  from  death,  having  left  his  own  ship  in 
Syracuse,  accompanied  him  to  Pontiole.  And  some  of  Peter's 
disciples  having  been  found  there,  and  having  received  Paul, 
exhorted  him  to  stay  with  them.  And  he  stayed  a  week  in 
hiding,  because  of  the  command  of  Caesar  (that  he  should 
be  put  to  death).  And  all  the  toparchs  were  waiting  to  seize 
and  kill  him.  But  Dioscorus  the  shipmaster,  being  himself 
also  bald,  wearing  his  shipmaster's  dress,  and  speaking 
boldly,  on  the  first  day  went  out  into  the  city  of  Pontiole. 
Thinking  therefore  that  he  was  Paul,  they  seized  him  and 
beheaded  him,  and  sent  his  head  to  Csesar.  ....  And  Paul, 
being  in  Pontiole,  and  having  bef,rd  that  Dioscorus  had  been 
beheaded,  being  grieved  with  great  grief,  gazing  into  the 
height  of  the  heaven,  said :  "  O  Lord  Almighty  in  Heaven, 
who  hast  appeared  to  me  in  every  place  whither  I  have  gone 
on  account  of  Thine  only-begotten  Word,  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  punish  this  city,  and  bring  out  all  who  have  believed 
in  God  and  followed  His  word."  He  said  to  them,  there- 
fore, "  Follow  me."  And  going  forth  from  Pontiole  with  those 
who  had  believed  in  the  word  of  God,  they  came  to  a  place 
called  Baias  (Baise),  and  looking  up  with  their  eyes,  they  all 


874 


MYTHOLOGY. 


r, 
k 

Id 
I 

k 
»■ 

i 

ti. 


see  that  city  oallod  Pontiolo  nunk  iuto  the  sua-shore  about 
one  fathom ;  aud  thero  it  Ib  until  this  day,  fur  a  remem- 
brance, under  the  sea.  .  . .  And  those  whu  had  been  saved 
out  of  the  city  of  Pontiolo,  that  had  boon  swallowed  up, 
reported  to  Caaar  in  Rome  that  Pontiole  had  been  swal- 
lowed up  with  all  its  multitude.' ' 

Episodes  of  popular  myth,  which  are  often  items  of  the 
serious  belief  of  the  times  they  belong  to,  may  serve  as  im- 
portant records  of  intellectual  history.  As  an  example 
belonging  to  the  class  of  philosophical  or  explanatory  myths, 
let  us  glance  at  an  Arabian  Nights'  story,  which  at  first 
sight  may  seem  an  effort  of  the  wildest  imagination,  but 
which  is  nevertheless  traceable  to  a  scientiBc  origin ;  this  is 
the  story  of  the  Magnetic  Mountain.  The  Third  Kalenter 
relates  in  his  tale  how  a  contrary  wind  drove  his  ships  into  a 
strange  sea,  and  there,  by  the  attraction  of  their  nails  and 
other  ironwork,  they  were  violently  drawn  towards  a  moun- 
tain of  black  loadstone,  till  at  last  the  iron  Hew  out  to  the 
mountain,  and  the  ships  went  to  pieces  in  the  surf.  The 
episode  is  older  than  the  date  when  the '  Thousand  and  One 
Nights'  were  edited.  When,  in  Henry  of  Veldeck's  12th 
century  poem,  Duke  Ernest  and  his  companions  sail  into 
the  Klebermeer,  they  see  the  rock  that  is  called  Magnes,  and 
are  themselves  dragged  in  below  it  among  '  many  a  work 
of  keels,'  whose  masts  stand  like  a  forest."  Turning  from 
tale-tellers  to  grave  geographers  and  travellers  who  talk 
of  the  loadstone  mountain,  we  find  El  Kazwini,  like  Serapion 
before  him,  believing  such  boats  as  may  be  still  seen  in 
Ceylon,  pegged  and  sewn  without  metal  nails,  to  be  so  built 
lest  the  magnetic  rock  should  attract  them  from  their  course 
at  sea.     This  quaint  notion  is  to  be  found  in  '  Sir  John 

'  '  Acts  of  Peter  and  Paul,'  trans,  by  A.  Walker,  in  Ante-Nicene  Library, 
vol.  xvi.  p.  257;  F.  F.  Tuckett  in  'Nature,'  Oct.  20,  1870.  See  Lyell, 
'Principles  of  Geology,'  ch.  xxx. ;  Phillips,  'Vesuvius,'  p.  244. 

''  Lane,  'Thousand  and  One  N.'  vol.  i.  pp.  161,  217  ;  vol.  iii.  p.  78  ;  Hole, 
'  Remarks  on  the  Ar.  N.'  p.  1U4  ;  Heinrich  von  Voldeck,  '  Herzog  Ernst's 
von  Bayern  ErhOhung,  &c.'  ed.  Rixner,  Amberg,  IbSO,  p.  65  ;  see  Ludlow, 
'  Popular  Epics  of  Middle  Ages,'  p.  221. 


MVTHOLOOY. 


375 


shore  about 
)r  a  re  mem - 
beou  saved 
■allowed  up, 
I  been  swal- 

iteina  of  the 
Borvo  as  im- 
an  example 
atory  myths, 
/hich  at  first 
filiation,  but 
rigin ;  this  is 
lird  Kalenter 
is  ships  into  a 
eir  nails  and 
ards  a  moun- 
w  out  to  the 
he  surf.    The 
Band  and  One 
eldeck's  12th 
ions  sail  into 
1  Magnes,  and 
many  a  work 
Turning  from 
era  who  talk 
like  Serapion 
still  seen  in 
to  be  so  built 
n  their  course 
in  '  Sir  John 


B-Nicene  Library, 
1870.    See  Lyell, 
244. 

.  iii.  p.  78  ;  Hole, 
'Herzog  Ernst's 
65  ;  see  Ludlow. 


Mandeville ' :  '  In  an  isle  clept  Crues,  bou  sohippes  with- 
outen  nayles  of  iren,  or  bonds,  for  the  rookes  of  the 
adamandes  ;  for  they  ben  alle  fulle  there  aboute  in  that  see, 
that  it  is  marvoyle  to  spaken  of.  And  gif  a  schipp  passed 
by  the  marches,  and  haddo  either  iron  bandes  or  iren  nayles, 
anon  he  sholde  ben  perishet.  For  the  adamande  of  this 
kinde  draws  the  iren  to  him ;  and  so  wolde  it  draw  to  him 
the  schipp,  because  of  the  iren ;  that  he  sholde  never 
departen  fro  it,  no  never  go  thons.'  ^  Now  it  seems  that 
accounts  of  the  magnetic  mountain  have  been  given  not  only 
as  belonging  to  the  southern  seas,  but  also  to  the  north, 
and  that  men  have  connected  with  such  notions  the  point- 
ing of  the  magnetic  needle,  as  Sir  Thomas  Browne  says, 
'  ascribing  thereto  the  cause  of  the  needle's  direction,  and 
conceeving  the  effluxions  from  these  mountains  and  rooks 
invite  the  lilly  toward  the  north.' ^  On  this  evidence  we 
have,  I  think,  fair  ground  for  supposing  that  hypotheses  of 
polar  magnetic  mountains  were  first  devised  to  explain  the 
action  of  the  compass,  and  that  these  gave  rise  to  stories  of 
such  mountains  exerting  what  would  be  considered  their 
proper  effect  on  the  iron  of  passing  ships.  The  argument 
is  clenched  by  the  consideration  that  Europeans,  who 
colloquially  say  the  needle  points  to  the  north,  naturally 
required  their  loadstone  mountain  in  high  northern  latitudes, 
while  on  the  other  hand  it  was  as  natural  that  Orientals 
should  place  this  wondrous  rock  in  the  south,  for  they  say 
it  is  to  the  south  that  the  needle  points.  The  conception  of 
magnetism  among  peoples  who  had  not  reached  the  idea  of 
double  polarity  may  be  gathered  from  the  following  quaint 
remarks  in  the  17th  century  cyclopedia  of  the  Chinese  em- 
peror Kang-  hi.  '  I  now  hear  the  Europeans  say  it  is  towards 
the  North  pole  that  the  compass  turns ;  the  ancients  said  it 
was  toward  the  South;  which  have  judged  most  rightly? 
Since  neither  give  any  reason  why,  we  come  to  no  more  with 
the  one  side  than  with  the  other.      But  the  ancients  are 

'  Sir  John  Maundevile,  '  Voiage  and  Travaile." 
^  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  *  Vulgar  Errours,'  ii.  3. 


i    i 


376 


MYTHOLOGY. 


the  earlier  in  date,  and  the  farther  I  go  the  more  I  perceive 
that  they  understood  the  mechanism  of  nature.  All  move- 
ment languishes  and  dies  in  proportion  as  it  approaches 
the  north ;  it  is  hard  to  believe  it  to  be  from  thence  that 
the  movement  of  the  magnetic  needle  comes.'^ 

To  suppose  that  theories  of  a  relation  between  man  and 
the  lower  mammalia  are  only  a  product  of  advanced  science, 
would  be  an  extreme  mistake.  Even  at  low  levels  of  culture, 
men  addicted  to  speculative  philosophy  have  been  led  to 
account  for  the  resemblance  between  apes  and  themselves  by 
solutions  satisfactory  to  their  own  minds,  but  which  we  must 
class  as  philosophic  myths.  Among  these,  stories  which 
embody  the  thought  of  an  upward  change  from  ape  to  man, 
more  or  less  approaching  the  last-century  theory  of  develop- 
ment, are  to  be  found  side  by  side  with  others  which  in  the 
converse  way  account  for  apes  as  degenerate  from  a  previous 
human  state. 

Central  American  mythology  works  out  the  idea  that 
monkeys  were  once  a  human  race.*^  In  South-East  Africa, 
Father  Dos  Santos  remarked  long  since  that  'they  hold 
that  the  apes  were  anciently  men  and  women,  and  thus  they 
call  them  in  their  tongue  the  first  people.'  The  Zulus  still 
tell  the  tale  of  an  Amafeme  tribe  who  became  baboons. 
They  were  an  idle  race  who  did  not  like  to  dig,  but  wished 
to  eat  at  other  people's  houses,  saying,  '  We  shall  live, 
although  we  do  not  dig,  if  we  eat  the  food  of  those  who 
cultivate  the  soil.'  So  the  chief  of  that  place,  of  the  house 
of  Tusi,  assembled  the  tribe,  and  they  prepared  food  and 
went  out  into  the  wilderness.    They  fastened  on  behind  them 


*  '  Mdmoires  cone.  I'Hist.,  Ac,  des  Chinois,'  vol.  iv.  p.  457.  Compare  the 
story  of  the  magnetic  ;?)  horseman  in  '  Thousand  and  One  N.'  vol.  iii.  p.  11!), 
with  the  old  Chinese  mention  of  magnetic  cars  with  a  movable-armed 
pointing  figure,  A.  v.  Humboldt,  *  Asie  Centrale,'  vol.  i.  p.  xl.  ;  Goguet,  vol. 
iii.  p.  284.  (The  loadstone  moimtain  has  its  power  from  a  turning  brazen 
horseman  on  the  top.) 

-  Brasseur,  'Popol  Vuh,'  pp.  23-31.  Compare  this  Central  American 
myth  of  the  ancient  senseless  mannikins  who  became  monkeys,  with  u 
Pottov.-atomi  legend  in  Schoolcraft,  '  Indian  Tribes,'  part  i.  p.  320. 


e  I  perceive 
All  move- 
approaches 
thence  that 

en  man  and 
iced  science, 
1b  of  culture, 
been  led  to 
lemselves  by 
lich  we  must 
lories  which 
ape  to  man, 
jT  of  develop - 
which  in  the 
m  a  previous 

he  idea  that 
-East  Africa, 
b  'they  hold 
,nd  thus  they 
e  Zulus  still 
me  baboons, 
but  wished 
shall  Uve, 
■  those  who 
of  the  house 
ed  food  and 
behind  them 


Compare  the 

'  vol.  iii.  p.  11!>, 

movable-armed 

:1. ;  Goguet,  vol. 

turning  brazen 

ntral  American 
lonkeys,  with  a 
p.  320. 


MYTHOLOGY. 


377 


the  handles  of  their  now  useless  digging  picks,  these  grew 
and  became  tails,  haix  made  its  appearance  on  their  bodies, 
their  foreheads  became  overhanging,  and  so  they  became 
baboons,  who  are  still  called  ■  Tusi's  men.'  ^  Mr.  Kingsley's 
story  of  the  great  and  famous  nation  of  the  Doasyoulikes, 
who  degenerated  by  natural  selection  into  gorillas,  is  the 
civilized  counterpart  of  this  savage  myth .  Or  monkey  s  may 
be  transformed  aborigines,  as  the  Mbocobis  relate  in  South 
America :  in  the  great  conflagration  of  their  forests  a  man 
and  woman  climbed  a  tree  for  refuge  from  the  fiery  deluge, 
but  the  flames  singed  their  faces  and  they  became  apes.** 
Among  more  civilized  nations  these  fancies  have  graphic 
representatives  in  Moslem  legends,  of  which  one  is  as 
follows : — There  was  a  Jewish  c:^  y  which  stood  by  a  river 
full  of  fish,  but  the  cuiming  creatures,  noticing  the  habits  of 
the  citizens,  ventured  freely  in  sight  on  the  Sabbath,  though 
they  carefully  kept  away  on  working-days.  At  last  the 
temptation  was  too  strong  for  the  Jewish  fishermen,  but 
they  paid  dearly  for  a  few  days'  fine  sport  by  being  miracu- 
lously turned  into  apes  as  a  punishment  for  Sabbath- 
breaking.  In  after  times,  when  Solomon  passed  through 
the  Valley  of  Apes,  between  Jerusalem  and  Mareb,  he 
received  from  their  descendants,  monkeys  living  in  houses 
and  dressed  like  men,  an  account  of  their  strange  history.^ 
So,  in  classic  times,  Jove  had  chastised  the  treacherous  race 
of  the  Cercopes ;  he  took  from  them  the  use  of  tongues, 
born  but  to  perjure,  leaving  them  to  bewail  in  hoarse  cries 
their  fate,  transformed  into  the  hairy  apes  of  the  Pithecusse, 
like  and  yet  unlike  the  men  they  had  been : — 

'In  deforme  viros  animal  mutavit,  ut  idem 
Dissimiles  homini  possent  similesque  videri.'  * 

•  Dos  Santos,  'Ethiopia  Oriental,'  Evora,  1609,  part  i.  chap.  ix. ;  Calla- 
way, '  Zulu  Tales,'  vol.  i.  p.  177.  See  also  Burton, '  Footsteps  in  E.  Afr.'  p. 
274  ;  Waitz,  '  Anthropologie,'  vol.  ii.  p.  178  (W.  Afr.\ 

'  D'Orbigny,  '  L'Homme  Am^ricain.'  vol.  ii.  p.  102. 
^  Weil,  ' Bibl. Leg. derMuselmttnner,' p.  267  ;  Lane,  'Thousand  and  One 
N.'  vol.  iii.  p.  350 ;  Burton,  '  El  Medinah,  &c.'  vol.  ii.  p.  843. 

*  Ovid,  'Metamm.'  xiv.  89-100  ;  Welcker,  'Griechische  GOtterlehre,' vol. 
iii.  p.  108. 


378 


MYTHOLOGY. 


%'  -• 


i.p    ■- 


,p*S!i!i;i  Villi 


'>*•- 


f 


r 

I 

* 

« 

b, 


Turning  from  degeneration  to  development,  it  is  found 
that  legends  of  the  descent  of  human  tribes  from  apes  are 
especially  applied  to  races  despised  as  low  and  beast-like  by 
some  higher  neighbouring  people,  and  the  low  race  may 
even  acknowledge  the  humiliating  explanation.  Thus  the 
aboriginal  features  of  the  robber-caste  of  the  Marawars  of 
South  India  are  the  justification  for  their  alleged  descent 
from  Kama's  monkeys,  as  for  the  like  genealogy  of  the 
Kathkuri,  or  catechu-gatherers,  which  these  small,  dark, 
low-browed,  curly-haired  tribes  actually  themselves  believe 
in.  The  Jaitwas  of  Rajputana,  a  tribe  reckoned  politically 
as  Rajputs,  nevertheless  trace  their  descent  from  the 
monkey-god  Hanuman,  and  confirm  it  by  alleging  that  their 
princes  still  bear  its  evidence  in  a  tail-like  prolongation  of 
the  spine ;  a  tradition  which  has  probably  a  real  ethnolo- 
gical meaning,  pointing  out  the  Jaitwas  as  of  non- Aryan 
race.'  Wild  tribes  of  the  Malay  peninsula,  looked  down  on 
as  lower  animals  by  the  more  warlike  and  civilized  Malays, 
have  among  them  traditions  of  their  own  descent  from  a 
pair  of  the  '  unka  puteh,'  or  '  white  monkeys,'  who  reared 
their  young  ones  and  sent  them  into  the  plains,  and  there 
they  perfected  so  well  that  they  and  their  descendants 
became  men,  but  those  who  returned  to  the  mountains  still 
remained  apes.'^  Thus  Buddhist  legend  relates  the  origin 
of  the  flat-nosed,  uncouth  tribes  of  Tibet,  offspring  of  two 
miraculous  apes,  transformed  to  people  the  enow-kingdom. 
Taught  to  till  the  ground,  when  they  had  grown  coi-n  and 
eaten  it,  their  tails  and  hair  gradually  disappeared,  they 
began  to  speak,  became  men,  and  clothed  themselves  with 
leaves.  The  population  grew  closer,  the  land  was  more  and 
more  cultivated,  and  at  last  a  prince  of  the  race  of  Sakya, 
driven  from  his  home  in  India,  united  their  isolated  tribes 
into  a  single  kingdom.^     In  these  traditions  the  develop- 

'  Campbell  in  'Journ.  As.  Soc.  Bengal,'  1866,  part  ii.  p.  132;  Latham, 
'  Descr.  Eth.'  vol.  ii.  p.  456  ;  Tod,  'Annals  of  Rajasthan,'  vol.  i.  p.  114. 

^  Bourien  in  'Tr.  Eth.  Soc'  vol.  iii.  p.  73  ;  see  'Journ.  Ind.  Archip.' vol. 
ii.  p.  271. 

^  Bastian,  '  Oestl.  Asien,'  vol.  ili.  p.  435  ;  '  Mensch,'  vol.  iii.  pp.  347,  349^ 


is  found 
apes  are 
3t-like  by 
race  may 
Thus  the 
,rawars  of 
d  descent 
gy  of  the 
lall,  dark, 
^es  believe 
politically 
from   the 
;  that  their 
ingation  of 
il  ethnolo- 
Qon-Aryan 
jd  down  on 
;ed  Malays, 
pnt  from  a 
vho  reared 
and  there 
escendants 
ntains  still 
;he  origin 
"ing  of  two 
kingdom, 
a  corn  and 
eared,  they 
selves  with 
,8  more  and 
of  Sakya, 
ated  tribes 
le  develop- 

132 ;  Latham, 
i.  p.  114. 
.  Archip.'  vol. 

,  pp.  347,  349, 


MYTHOLOGY. 


379 


ment  from  ape  to  man  is  considered  to  have  come  in  suc- 
cessive generations,  but  the  negroes  are  said  to  attain  the 
result  in  the  individual,  by  way  of  metempsychosis.  Froebel 
speaks  of  negro  slaves  in  the  United  States  believing  that 
in  the  next  world  they  shall  be  white  men  and  free,  nor  is 
there  anything  strange  in  their  cherishing  a  hope  so  pre- 
valent among  their  kindred  in  West  Africa.  But  from  this 
the  traveller  goes  on  to  quote  another  story,  which,  if  not 
too  good  to  be  true,  is  a  theory  of  upward  and  downward 
development,  almost  thorough  enough  for  a  Buddhist  philo- 
sopher. He  says,  '  A  German  whom  I  met  here  told  me 
that  the  blacks  believe  the  damned  among  the  negroes  to 
become  monkeys ;  but  if  in  this  state  they  behave  well,  they 
are  advanced  to  the  state  of  a  negro  again,  and  bliss  is  event- 
ually possible  to  them,  consisting  in  their  turning  white, 
becoming  winged,  and  so  on.'  * 

To  understand  these  stories  (and  they  are  worth  some 
attention  for  the  ethnological  hints  they  contain),  it  is  neces- 
sary that  we  should  discard  the  results  of  modern  scientific 
zoology,  and  bring  our  minds  back  to  a  ruder  condition  of 
knowledge.  The  myths  of  human  degeneration  and  develop- 
ment have  much  more  in  common  with  the  speculations  of 
Lord  Monboddo  than  with  the  anatomical  arguments  of 
Professor  Huxley.  On  the  one  hand,  uncivilized  men 
deliberately  assign  to  apes  an  amount  of  human  quality 
which  to  modern  naturalists  is  simply  ridiculous.  Everyone 
has  heard  the  story  of  the  negroes  declaring  that  apes  really 
can  speak,  but  judiciously  hold  their  tongues  lest  they 
should  be  made  to  work ;  but  it  is  not  so  generally  known  that 
this  is  found  as  serious  matter  of  belief  in  several  distant 
regions— West  Africa,  Madagascar,  South  America,  &c. — 
where  monkeys  or  apes  are  found.^     With  this  goes  another 

387;  Koeppen,  vol.  ii.  p.  44;  J.  J.  Schmidt,  'Volker  Mittel-Asiena, '  p. 
210. 

'  Froebel, '  Central  America,'  p.  220  ;  see  Bosman,  '  Guinea,'  in  Pinkerton, 
vol.  xvi.  p.  401.  For  other  traditions  of  human  descent  from  apes,  see 
Farrar,  '  Chapters  on  Language,'  p.  45. 

^  Bosman,  'Guinea,'  p.  440  ;  Waitz,  vol.  ii.  p.  178  ;  Cauche,  '  Relation  de 


'/ 


^.t^ititiJ^ 


380 


MYTHOLOGY. 


vis'. 
In... 


I 

t 

8 
I 

k 


widely-spread  anthropoid  story,  which  relates  how  great 
apes  like  the  gorilla  and  the  orang-utan  carry  off  women 
to  their  homes  in  the  woods,  much  as  the  Apaches  and 
Comanches  of  our  own  time  carry  off  to  their  prairies 
the  women  of  North  Mexico.^  And  on  the  other  hand, 
popular  opinion  has  under-estimated  the  man  as  much  as  it 
has  over-estimated  the  monkey.  We  know  how  sailors  and 
emigrants  can  look  on  savages  as  senseless,  ape-like  brutes, 
and  how  some  writers  on  anthropology  have  contrived  to 
make  out  of  the  moderate  intellectual  difference  between  an 
Englishman  and  a  negro  something  equivalent  to  the  im- 
mense interval  between  a  negro  and  a  gorilla.  Thus  we 
can  have  no  difficulty  in  understanding  how  savages  may 
seem  mere  apes  to  the  eyes  of  men  who  hunt  them  like  wild 
beasts  in  the  forests,  who  can  only  hear  in  their  language  a 
sort  of  irrational  gurgling  and  barking,  and  who  fail  totally 
to  appreciate  the  real  culture  which  better  acquaintance 
always  shows  among  the  rudest  tribes  of  man.  It  is  well 
known  that  when  Sanskrit  legend  tells  of  the  apes  who 
fought  in  the  army  of  King  Hanuman,  it  really  refers  to 
those  aborigines  of  the  land  who  were  driven  by  the  Aryan 
invaders  to  the  hills  and  jungles,  and  whose  descendants  are 
known  to  us  as  Bhils,  Kols,  Sonthals,  and  the  like,  rude 
tribes  such  as  the  Hindu  still  speaks  of  as  'monkey- 
people.'  ^  One  of  the  most  perfect  identifications  of  the 
savage  and  the  monkey  in  Hindustan  is  the  following  de- 
scription of  the  bunmanus,  or '  man  of  the  woods '  (Sanskr. 
vana  =  wood,  manusha  =  man).  '  The  bunmanus  is  an  animal 
of  the  monkey  kind.     His  face  has  a  near  resemblance  to 


Madagascar,'  p.  127;    Dobrizhoffer,  'Abipones,'  vol.  i.  p.  288;   Bastian, 
'  Mensch,'  vol.  ii.  p.  44  ;  Pouchet,  '  Plurality  of  Human  Race,'  p.  22. 

*  Monboddo,  'Origin  and  Progress  of  Lang.'  2nd  ed.  vol.  i.  p.  277  ;  Du 
Chaillu,  '  Equatorial  Africa,'  p.  61 ;  St.  John,  '  Forests  of  Far  East,'  vol.  i. 
p.  17  ;  vol,  ii.  p.  23'J. 

*  Max  Miiller  in  Bunsen,  '  PhiL  Univ.  Hist.'  vol.  i.  p.  340  ;  '  Journ.  As. 
Soc.  Bengal,'  vol.  xxiv.  p.  207.  See  Marsden  in  'As.  Res.'  vol.  iv.  p.  226  ; 
Fitch  in  Pinkerton,  vol.  ix.  p.  415  ;  Bastian,  'Oestl.  Asien,'  vol.  i.  p.  465  ; 
vol.  ii.  p.  201. 


MYTHOLOGY. 


381 


low  great 
iff  women 
aches  and 
iF  prairies 
iher  hand, 
much  as  it 
sailors  and 
ike  brutes, 
ntrived  to 
aetween  an 
to  the  im- 
Thus  we 
tvages  may 
n  like  wild 
language  a 
fail  totally 
jquaintance 
It  is  well 
apes  who 
[y  refers  to 
J  the  Aryan 
endants  are 
like,  rude 
'  monkey - 
ons  of  the 
owing  de- 
ls '  (Sanskr. 
is  an  animal 
imblance  to 


288  ;   Bastian, 
e,'  p.  22. 
i.  p.  277  ;  Du 
nr  East,'  vol.  i. 

'  Journ.  As. 
vol.  iv.  p.  226  ; 
vol.  i.  p.  465  ; 


the  human  ;  he  has  no  tail,  and  walks  erect.  The  skin  of 
his  body  is  black,  and  slightly  covered  with  hair.'  That 
this  description  really  applies  not  to  apes,  but  to  the  dark- 
skinned,  non- Aryan  aborigines  of  the  land,  appears  further 
in  the  enumeration  of  the  local  dialects  of  Hindustan,  to 
which,  it  is  said,  '  may  be  added  the  jargon  of  the  bunma- 
nus,  or  wild  men  of  the  woods.' '  In  the  islands  of  the 
Indian  Archipelago,  whose  tropical  forests  swarm  both  with 
high  apes  and  low  savages,  the  confusion  between  the  two 
in  the  minds  of  the  half-civilized  inhabitants  becomes  almost 
inextricable.  There  is  a  well-known  Hindu  fable  in  the 
Hitopadesa,  which  relates  as  a  warning  to  stupid  imitators 
the  fate  of  the  ape  who  imitated  the  carpenter,  and  was 
caught  in  the  cleft  when  he  pulled  out  the  wedge ;  this  fable 
has  come  to  be  told  in  Sumatra  as  a  real  story  of  one  of  the 
indigenous  savages  of  the  island.^  It  is  to  rude  forest-men 
that  the  Malays  habitually  give  the  name  of  orang-utan,  i.e., 
'  man  of  the  woods.'  But  in  Borneo  this  term  is  applied 
to  the  miyas  ape,  whence  we  have  learnt  to  call  this  creature 
the  orang-utan,  and  the  Malays  themselves  are  known  to 
give  the  name  in  one  and  the  same  district  to  both  the  savage 
and  the  ape.^  This  term  '  man  of  the  woods '  extends  far 
beyond  Hindu  and  Malay  limits.  The  Siamese  talk  of  the 
Khon  pa,  '  men  of  the  wood,'  meaning  apes  ;  *  the  Brazil- 
ians of  Cauiari,  or  '  wood-men,'  meaning  a  certain  savage 
tribe.''  The  name  of  the  Bosjesman,  so  amusingly  mispro- 
nounced by  Englishmen,  as  though  it  were  some  outlandish 
native  word,  is  merely  the  Dutch  equivalent  for  Bush- man, 
'  man  of  the  woods  or  bush.' "     In  our  own  language  the 

'  Ayeen  Akbaree,  trans,  by  Gladwin  ;  '  Report  of  Ethnological  Committee 
Jubbulpore  Exhibition,  1866-7,'  part  i.  p.  3.  See  the  mention  of  the  ban- 
manush  in  'Kumaon  and  Nepal,'  Campbell;  'Ethnology  of  India,'  in 
'Journ.  As.  Soc.  Bengal,'  1&66,  part  ii.  p.  46.  , 

'  Marsden,  'Sumatra,'  p.  41. 

^  Logan  in  'Journ.  Ind.  Archip.'  vol.  i.  p  246  ;  vol.  iii.  p.  490  ;  Thomson, 
ibid.  vol.  i.  p.  850  ;  Crawfurd,  ibid.  vol.  iv.  p.  186. 

*  Bastian,  'Oestl.  Asien,'  vol.  i.  p.  123  ;  vol.  iii.  p.  435. 

•■'  Martius,  'Ethnog.  Amer.'  vol.  i.  pp.  425,  471. 

"  Its  analogue  is  bosjesbok,  '  bush-goat,'  the  African  antelope.    The  deri- 


HHi 

i! 

^.(,- 

IM 

n 

'■■'*  ■ 

A 

1 

I 

'.f.  ■ 

pp 

||| 

I 

J| 

■  t'. 

■  r 
I 

t 

ll. 

I'. 


382 


MYTHOLOGY. 


'  homo  silveiticus '  or  '  forest-man  '  has  become  the  '  salvage 
man '  or  savage.  European  opinion  of  the  native  tribes 
of  the  New  World  may  be  judged  of  by  the  fact  that,  in 
1537,  Pope  Paul  III.  had  to  make  express  statement  that 
these  Indians  were  really  men  (attendentes  Indos  ipsos 
utpote  veroB  homines).'  Thus  there  is  little  cause  to 
wonder  at  the  circulation  of  stories  of  ape-men  in  South 
America,  and  at  there  being  some  indefiniteness  in  the  local 
accounts  of  the  selvage  or  '  savage,'  that  hairy  wild  man 
of  the  woods  who,  it  is  said,  lives  in  the  trees,  and  some- 
times carries  off  the  native  women.^  The  most  perfect  of 
these  mystifications  is  to  be  found  in  a  Portuguese  manu- 
script quoted  in  the  account  of  Castelnau's  expedition,  and 
giving,  in  all  seriousness,  the  following  account  of  the 
people  called  Cuatas :  '  This  populous  nation  dwells  east 
of  the  Juruena,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  rivers  San  Joao 
and  San  Thome,  advancing  even  to  the  confluence  of  the 
Juruena  and  the  Arinos.  It  is  a  very  remarkable  fact  that 
the  Indians  composing  it  walk  naturally  like  the  quadru- 
peds, with  their  hands  on  the  ground  ;  they  have  the  belly, 
breast,  arms,  and  legs  covered  with  hair,  and  are  of  small 
stature;  they  are  fierce,  and  use  their  teeth  as  weapons; 
thej'  sleep  on  the  ground,  or  among  the  branches  of  trees  ; 
they  have  no  industry,  nor  agriculture,  and  live  only  on 
fruits,  wild  roots,  and  fish.'  •'  The  writer  of  this  record 
shows  no  symptom  of  being  aware  that  cnata  or  coata  is  the 
name  of  the  large  black  Simla  Paniscus,  and  that  he  has 
been  really  describing,  not  a  tribe  of  Indians,  but  a  species 
of  apes. 

Various  reasons  may  have  led  to  the  growth  of  another 
quaint  group  of  legends,  describing  human  tribes  with  tails 


vation  of  tho  Bosjesman's  name  from  his  nest-like  shelter  in  a  bush,  given 
by  Kolben  and  others  since,  is  newer  and  far-fetched. 

•  Martius,  vol.  i  p.  ;  0. 

*  Humboldt  and  Bonpland,  vol.  v.  p.  81 ;  Southey,  '  Brazil,'  vol.  i.  p. 
XXX. ;  Bates,  'Amazons,'  vol.  i.  p.  73  ;  vol.  ii.  p.  204. 

"  Castolnau,  '  Exp.  dans  I'Am^r.  du  Sud,'  vol.  iii.  p.  118.     See  Martius, 
vol.  i.  pp.  248,  414,  uG3,  633. 


li" 


e  '  salvage 
,ive  tribes 
3t  tLat,  in 
iment  that 
idos  ipsos 
cause  to 
I  in  South 
a  the  local 
wild  man 
and  some- 
perfect  of 
lese  manu- 
dition,  and 
ant  of  the 
dwells  east 
rs  San  Joao 
ence  of  the 
»le  fact  that 
he  quadru- 
e  the  belly, 
,re  of  small 
weapons ; 
es  of  trees  ; 
ve  only  on 
this  record 
coata  is  the 
ihat  he  has 
lit  a  species 

of  another 
with  tails 


MYTHOLOGY. 


383 


like  beasts.  To  people  who  at  once  believe  monkeys  a  kind 
of  savages,  and  savages  a  kind  of  monkeys,  men  with  tails 
are  creatures  coming  under  both  definitions.  Thus  the 
Homo  caudatus,  or  satyr,  often  appears  in  popular  belief  as 
a  half-human  creature,  while  even  in  old-fashioned  works 
on  natural  history  he  may  be  found  depicted  on  the  evident 
model  of  an  anthropoid  ape.  In  East  Africa,  the  imagined 
tribe  of  long-tailed  men  are  also  monkey-faced,^  while  in 
South  America  the  coata  tapuya,  or  '  monkey-men,'  are  as 
naturally  described  as  men  with  tails.^  European  travellers 
have  tried  to  rationalize  the  stories  of  tailed  men  which 
they  meet  with  in  Africa  and  the  East.  Thus  Dr.  Krapf 
points  to  a  leather  appendage  worn  behind  from  the  girdle 
by  the  Wakamba,  and  remarks,  'It  is  no  wonder  that 
people  say  there  are  men  with  tails  in  the  interior  of 
Africa,'  and  other  writers  have  called  attention  to  hanging 
mats  or  waist-cloths,  fly-flappers  or  artificial  tails  worn  for 
ornament,  as  having  made  their  wearers  liable  to  be  mis- 
taken at  a  distance  for  tailed  men.^  But  these  apparently 
silly  myths  have  often  a  real  ethnological  significance, 
deeper  at  any  rate  than  such  a  trivial  blunder.  When  an 
ethnologist  meets  in  any  district  with  the  story  of  tailed 
men,  he  ought  to  look  for  a  despised  tribe  of  aborigines,  out- 
casts, or  heretics,  living  near  or  among  a  dominant  popula- 
tion, who  look  upon  them  as  beasts,  and  furnish  them  with 
tails  accordingly.  Although  the  aboriginal  Miau-tsze,  or 
'  children  of  the  soil,'  come  down  from  time  to  time  into 
Canton  to  trade,  the  Chinese  still  firmly  believe  them  to 
have  short  tails  like  raonkej^s ;  *  the  half-civilized  Malays 
describe  the  ruder  forest  tribes  as  tailed  men ;  °  the 
Moslem  nations  of  Africa  tell  the  same  story  of  the  Niam- 


a  bush,  given 

azil,'  vol.  i.  p. 
See  Martius. 


'  Petherick,  '  Egypt,  &c.'  p.  867. 

»  Southey,  'Brazil,'  vol.  i.  p.  685  ;  Martius,  vol.  i.  pp.  42.5,  633. 

'  Krapf,  p.  142  ;  Baker,  'Albert  Nyanza,'  vol.  1.  p.  S3  ;  St.  John,  vol.  i. 
pp.  51,  4115  ;  and  others. 

*  Lockhart,  'Abor.  of  vhina,'  in  'Tr.  Eth.  Soc.'  vol.  i.  p.  181. 

'  '  Journ  Ind.  Archip."  vol.  ii.  p.  858  ;  vol.  iv.  p.  374  ;  Cameron,  'Mala- 
yan India,'  p.  120  ;  Marsuen,  p.  7  ;  Antonio  Galvano,  pp.  I'/O,  218. 


:Wi 


384 


MYTHOLOGY. 


ffi^ 


f 


n.  ■■"■ 


■  «?, 
■l 

I 
f 

ll 


Nam  of  the  interior.^  The  outcast  race  of  Cagots,  about 
the  Pyrenees,  were  said  to  be  bom  with  tails ;  and  in  Spain 
the  mediaeval  superstition  still  survives  that  the  Jews  have 
tails,  like  the  devil,  as  they  say."  In  England  the  notion 
was  turned  to  theological  profit  by  being  claimed  as  a  judg- 
ment on  wretches  who  insulted  St.  Augustine  and  St. 
Thomas  of  Canterbury.  Home  Tooke  quotes  thus  from 
that  zealous  and  somewhat  foul-mouthed  reformer,  Bishop 
Bale:  'Johan  Capgrave  and  Alexander  of  Esseby  sayth, 
that  for  castynge  of  fyshe  tayles  atthys  Augustyne,  Dorsett 
Shyre  menne  hadde  tayles  ever  after.  But  Polydorus 
applieth  it  unto  Kentish  men  at  Stroud  by  Rochester,  for 
cuttinge  of  Thomas  Becket's  horse's  tail.  Thus  hath  Eng- 
land in  all  other  land  a  perpetuall  infamy  of  tayles  by  theyr 
wrytten  legendes  of  lyes,  yet  can  they  not  well  tell,  where 

to  bestowe  them  truely an  Englyshman 

now  cannot  travayle  in  an  other  land,  by  way  of  marchan- 
dyse  or  any  other  honest  occupyinge,  but  it  is  most  con- 
tumeliously  thrown  in  his  tethe,  that  al  Englishmen  have 
tailes.'  ^  The  story  at  last  sank  into  a  commonplace  of 
local  slander  between  shire  and  shire,  and  the  Devonshire 
belief  that  Cornishmen  had  tails  lingered  at  least  till  a  few 
years  ago.*  Not  less  curious  is  the  tradition  among  savage 
tribes,  that  the  tailed  state  was  an  early  or  original  condi- 
tion of  man  In  the  Fiji  Islands  there  is  a  legend  of  a  tribe 
of  men  with  tails  like  dogs,  who  perished  in  the  great 
deluge,  while  the  Tasmanians  declared  that  men  originally 
had  tails  and  no  knee-joints.  Among  the  natives  of  Brazil, 
it  is  related  by  a  Portuguese  writer  of  about  1600,  after  a 
couple  have  been  married,  the  father  or  father-in-law  cuts  a 
wooden  stick  with  a  sharp  flint,  imagining  that  by  this  cere- 
mony he  cuts  off  the  tails  of  any  future  grandchildren,  so 


'  Davis,  '  Carthage, '  p.  230  ;  Bostock  and  Riley's  Pliny  (Bohn's  ed.),  vol. 
ii.  p.  134,  note. 

•'  Francisque-Michel,  'Races  Maudites,'  vol.  i.  p.  17  ;  'Argot,'  p.  349  ; 
Fernan  Caballero,  '  La  Gaviota,'  vol.  i.  p.  59. 

'  Home  Tooke,  '  Diversions  of  Parley,'  vol.  i.  p.  397. 

*  Baring-Gould,  'Myths,'  p.  137. 


MYTHOLOGY. 


385 


gets,  about 
id  in  Spain 
Jews  have 
the  notion 
I  as  ajudg- 
ae  and   St. 
thus  from 
ner,  Bishop 
seby  sayth, 
me,  Dorsett 
Polydorus 
)chester,  for 
s  hath  Eng- 
les  by  theyr 
1  tell,  where 
Englyshman 
of  marchan- 
s  most  con- 
ishmen  have 
naonplace  of 
Devonshire 
,st  till  a  few 
nong  savage 
ofinal  condi- 
nd  of  a  tribe 
n  the  great 
sn  originally 
es  of  Brazil, 
600,  after  a 
n-law  cuts  a 
by  this  cere- 
children,  so 

John's  ed.),  vol. 
i\.rgot,*  p.  349  ; 


that  they  will  be  bom  tailless.^  There  seems  no  evidence 
to  connect  the  occasional  occurrence  of  tail-like  projections 
by  malformation  with  the  stories  of  tailed  human  tribes.^ 

Anthropology,  until  modern  times,  classified  among  its 
facts  the  particulars  of  monstrous  human  tribes,  gigantic  or 
dwarfish,  mouthless  or  headless,  one-eyed  or  one-legged, 
and  so  forth.  The  works  of  ancient  geographers  and 
naturalists  abound  in  descriptions  of  these  strange  creatures ; 
writers  such  as  Isidore  of  Seville  and  Koger  Bacon  collected 
them,  and  sent  them  into  fresh  and  wider  circulation  in  the 
middle  ages,  and  the  popular  belief  of  uncivilized  nations 
retains  them  still.  It  was  not  till  the  real  world  had  been 
so  thoroughly  explored  as  to  leave  little  room  in  it  for  the 
monsters,  that  about  the  beginning  of  the  present  century 
science  banished  them  to  the  ideal  world  of  mythology. 
Having  had  to  glance  here  at  two  of  the  principal  species 
in  this  amazing  semi-human  menagerie,  it  may  be  worth 
while  to  look  among  the  rest  for  more  hints  as  to  the 
sources  of  mythic  fancy .^ 

That  some  of  the  myths  of  giants  and  dwarfs  are  con- 
nected with  traditions  of  real  indigenous  or  hostile  tribes  is 
settled  beyond  question  by  the  evidence  brought  forward  by 
Grimm,  Nilsson,  and  Hanusch.  With  all  the  difficulty  of 
analyzing  the  mixed  nature  of  the  dwarfs  of  European  folk- 
lore, and  judging  how  far  they  are  elves,  or  gnomes,  or  such 
like  nature-spirits,  and  how  far  human  beings  in  mythic 
aspect,  it  is  impossible  not  to  recognize  the  element  derived 

'  Williams,  'Fiji,'  vol.  i.  p.  252  ;  Backhouse,  '  Austr.'  p.  557  ;  Purchas, 
vol.  iv.  p.  1290  ;  De  Laet,  'Nevus  Orbis,'  p.  543. 

"  For  various  other  stories  of  tailed  men,  see  'As.  Res.'  vol.  iii.  p.  149  ; 
'Mem.  Anthrop.  Soc.'  vol.  i.  p.  454  ;  '  Journ.  Ind.  Archip.'  vol.  iii.  p.  261, 
&c.  (Nicobar  Islands)  ;  Klemm,  '  C.  G.'  vol.  ii.  pp.  246,  316  (Sarytschew 
Is.)  ;  '  Letters  of  Columbus,'  Hakluyt  Soc.  p.  11  (Cuba),  &c.,  &c. 

'  Details  of  monstrous  tribes  have  been  in  past  centuries  specially  col- 
lected in  the  following  works  :  '  Anthropometamorphosis  :  Man  Trans- 
formed, or  the  Artiflciall  Changeling,  &c.,'  scripsit  J.  B.  cognomento 
Chirosophus,  M.D.,  London,  1653  ;  Calovius,  '  De  Thaumatanthropologia, 
vera  pariter  atque  ficta  tractatus  historico-physicus,'  Rostock,  1685  ;  J.  A. 
Fabricius,  '  Dissertatio  de  hominibus  orbis  nostri  incolis,  &c.,'  Hamburg, 
1721.    Only  a  few  principal  references  are  here  given. 

VOL.  L  C  C 


886 


MYTHOLOOY. 


.'     ii 


■i 

t    ': 

k 


from  the  kindly  or  mischievous  aborigines  of  the  land,  with 
their  special  language,   and  religion,  and  costume.     The 
giants  appear  in  European  folklore  as  Stone-Age  heathen, 
shy  of  the  conquering  tribes  of  men,  loathing  their  agri- 
culture and  the  sound   of  their  church-bells.     The  rude 
native's  fear  of  the  more  civilized  intruder  in  his  land  is 
well  depicted  in  the  tale   of  the  giant's   daughter,  who 
found  the  boor  ploughing  his  field  and  carried  him  home 
in  her  apron  for  a  plaything — plough,  and  oxen,  and  all ; 
but  her  mother  bade  her  carry  them  back  to  where  she 
found  them,  for,  said  she,  they  are  of  a  people  that  can  do 
the  Huns  much  ill.     The  fact  of  the  giant  tribes  bearing 
such  historic  names  as  Hun  or  Chud  is  significant,  and 
Slavonic  men  have,  perhaps,  not  yet  forgotten  that  the 
dwarfs  talked  of  in  their  legends  were  descended  from  the 
aborigines  whom  the   Old-Prussians   found  in  the  land. 
Beyond  a  doubt  the  old  Scandinavians  are  describing  the 
ancient  and  ill-used   Lapp    population,  once    so    widely 
spread  over  Northern  Europe,  when  their  sagas  tell  of  the 
dwarfs,  stunted  and  ugly,  dressed  in  reindeer  kirtle,  and 
coloured  cap,  cunning  and  cowardly,  shy  of  intercourse  even 
with  friendly  Norsemen,  dwelling  in  caves  or  in  the  mound- 
like Lapland  *  gamm,'  armed  only  with  arrows  tipped  with 
stone  and  bone,  yet  feared  and  hated  by  their  conquerors 
for  their  fancied  powers  of  witchcraft.^    Moslem  legend 
relates  that  the  race  of  Gog  and  Magog  (Yajuj  and  Majuj) 
are  of  tiny  stature,  but  with  ears  like  elephants  ;  they  are  a 
numerous  people,  and  ravaged  the  world;  they  dwell  in 
the  East,  separated  from  Persia  by  a  high  mountain,  with 
but  one  pass ;  and  the  nations  their  neighbours,  when  they 
heard  of  Alexander  the  Great  (Dhu  I'Kamein)  traversing 
the  world,  paid  tribute  to  him,  and  he  made  them  a  wall  of 
bronze  and  iron,  to  keep  in  the  nation  of  Gog  and  Magog.^ 

■  Grimm,  *D.  M.'  ch.  xvii.  xviii. ;  Nilsson,  'Pi-imitive  Inhabitants  of 
Scandinavia,'  ch,  vi. ;  Hanusch,  'Slaw.  Myth.'  pp.  230,  325-7;  Wuttke, 
'  Volksabergl.' p.  231. 

"  'ChroniquedeTabari,' tr.  Dubeux,  part  i.  ch.  viii.   See  Koran,  xviii.  92. 


e  land,  with 
itume.    The 
,ge  heathen, 
;  their  agri- 
The  rude 
i  his  land  is 
ughter,  who 
i  him  home 
en,  and  all ; 
0  where  she 
that  can  do 
ibes  bearing 
aificant,  and 
ten  that  the 
ded  from  the 
in  the  land, 
escribing  the 
5   BO   widely 
'as  tell  of  the 
t  kirtle,  and 
jrcourse  even 
a  the  mound- 
tipped  with 
r  conquerors 
)slem  legend 
and  Majuj) 
they  are  a 
ley  dwell  in 
auntain,  wath 
s,  when  they 
)  traversing 
lem  a  wall  of 
and  Magog.^ 

Inhabitants  of 

J25  -7  ;  Wuttke, 

Koran,  xviii.  92. 


MYTHOLOGY. 


887 


Who  can  fail  to  recognize  in  this  a  mystified  description 
of  the  Tatars  of  High  Asia?  Professor  Nilsson  tries  to 
account  in  a  general  way  for  the  huge  or  tiny  stature  of 
legendary  tribes,  as  being  mere  exaggeration  of  their  actual 
largeness  or  smallness.  We  must  admit  that  this  some- 
times really  happens.  The  accounts  which  European 
eye-witnesses  brought  home  of  the  colossal  stature  of  the 
Patagonians,  to  whose  waists  they  declared  their  own  heads 
reached,  are  enough  to  settle  once  for  all  the  fact  that 
myths  of  giants  may  arise  from  the  sight  of  really  tall 
men ;  ^  and  it  is  so,  too,  with  the  dwarf- legends  of  the  same 
region,  as  where  Knivet,  the  old  traveller,  remarks  of  the 
little  people  of  Rio  de  la  Plata,  that  they  are  '  not  so  very 
little  as  described.'  ^ 

Nevertheless,  this  same  group  of  giant  and  dwarf  myths 
may  serve  as  a  warning  not  to  stretch  too  widely  a  partial 
explanation,  however  sound  within  its  proper  limits.  There 
is  plenty  of  evidence  that  giant-legends  are  sometimes  philo- 
sophic myths,  made  to  account  for  the  finding  of  great  fossil 
bones.  To  give  but  a  single  instance  of  such  connexion, 
certain  huge  jaws  and  teeth,  found  in  excavating  on  the 
Hoe  at  Plymouth,  were  recognized  as  belonging  to  the  giant 
Gogmagog,  who  in  old  times  fought  his  last  fight  there 
against  Corineus,  the  eponymic  hero  of  Cornwall.^  As  to 
the  dwarfs,  again,  stories  of  them  are  curiously  associated 
with  those  long-enduring  monuments  of  departed  races — 
their  burial-cysts  and  dolmens.  Thus,  in  the  United  States, 
ranges  of  rude  stone  cysts,  often  only  two  or  three  feet  long, 
are  connected  with  the  idea  of  a  pygmy  race  buried  in  them. 
In  Brittany,  the  dolmens  are  the  abodes  and   treasuries 


'  Pigafetta  in  Pinkerton,  vol.  xi.  p.  314.  See  Blumenbach,  '  De  Generis 
Humanaa  Varietate;'  Fitzroy,  'Voy.  of  Adventure  and  Beagle,'  vol.  i. ; 
Waitz,  '  Anthropologie,'  vol.  iii.  p.  488. 

"  Knivet  in  Purchas,  vol.  iv.  p.  1231 ;  compare  Humboldt  and  Bonpland, 
vol.  v.  p.  564,  with  Martius,  *  Ethnog.  Amer.'  p.  424  ;  see  also  Krapf,  '  East 
Africa,'  p.  51  ;  Du  Chaillu,  '  Ashango-land,'  p.  319. 

'  'Early  Hist,  of  Mankind,'  ch.  xi. ;  Hunt,  'Pop.  Rom.'  1st  series,  pp 
18,  304. 

C  C  2 


if 


MYTHOLOOY. 


m 


0,. 


r 

m 

R 

I 

k 

f 


of  the  tlwarfs  who  built  ^hem  and  likewise  in  India  it  is  a 
usual  Icjjfond  of  Ruch  prehisiuiif  burial-places,  that  they 
were  dwarfs'  liouses — the  dwellings  of  the  ancient  pygniifh, 
who  here  again  appear  as  representatives  of  prehistoric 
tribes^  But  a  very  d»f*^rent  meaning  is  obvious  in  a 
iiiMdifEval  traveller's  account  of  the  hairy,  man- like  crea- 
tures of  Cathay,  one  cubit  high,  and  that  do  not  bend 
their  knees  an  they  walk,  or  in  an  Arab  geographer's  de- 
scription of  an  island  people  in  the  Indian  seas,  four  spans 
high,  naked,  with  rod  downy  hair  on  their  faces,  and  who 
climb  up  trees  and  shun  mankind.  If  any  one  could  pos- 
sibly doubt  the  real  nature  of  these  dwarfs,  his  doubt  may 
be  resolved  by  Marco  Polo's  statement  that  in  his  time 
monkeys  were  regularly  embalmed  in  the  East  Indies,  and 
sold  in  boxes  to  be  exhibited  over  the  world  as  pygmies.* 
Thus  various  different  facts  have  given  rise  to  stories  of 
giants  and  dwarfs,  more  than  one  mythic  element  perhaps 
combining  to  form  a  single  legend — a  result  perplexing  in 
the  extreme  to  the  mythological  interpreter. 

Descriptions  of  strange  bribes  made  in  entire  good  faith 
may  come  to  be  understo'x  i  in  new  extra vag|nt  senses,  when 
caiTied  among  people  not  aware  of  the  original  facts.  The 
following  are  some  interpretations  of  this  kind,  among 
which  some  far-fetched  cases  are  given,  to  show  that  the 
method  must  not  be  trusted  too  much.  The  term  '  nose- 
less '  is  apt  to  be  misunderstood,  yet  it  was  fairly  enough 
applied  to  flat-nosed  tribes,  such  as  Turks  of  the  steppes, 
whom  Rabbi  Benjamin  of  Tudela  thus  depicts  in  the  twelfth 
century  : — '  They  have  no  noses,  but  draw  breath  through 
two  small  holes.' ^    Again,  among  the  commoji  ornumontal 

'  Squier,  *  Abor.  Monuments  of  N.  Y.'  p.  68  ;  Long's  i.  i,.  \ol.  i.  pp.  62, 
275  ;  Hersart  de  Villemarquc,  '  Chants  Populaircs  de  la  Bretagno,'  p.  liv., 
35  ;  Meadows  Taylor  in  '  Journ.  Eth.  Soc'  vol.  i.  p.  157. 

'  Gul.  de  Rubruquis  in  Pinkerton,  vol.  vii.  p.  6!) ;  Lane,  'Thousand  and 
ae  N.'  vol.  iii.  pp.  81,  91,  see  24,  62,  97  ;  Hole,  p.  63  ;  Marco  Polo,  book 
..h.  y'n. 

«  i;.iftinir>  •?■  Tudela.  '  Itinerary,' ed.  and  tr.  by  Asher,  83  ;  Plin.  vii.  2. 
S'-a  ..  'X  Mi'Siej"  in  Bunsen  '  Philos.  Univ.  Hist.,'  vol.  1.  pp.  346,  358. 


ndia  it  Ib  a 

that  tboy 
Qt  pygniif'w, 

prehistoric 
jviouB  in  a 
i-like  crea- 
3  not  bond 
•apher's  de- 
,  four  spans 
68,  and  who 
9  could  poB- 

doubt  may 
in  his  tiTTAe 

Indies,  and 
18  pygmies.'* 
bo  stories  of 
lent  perhaps 
erplexing  in 

B  good  faith 
senses,  when 

facts.  The 
and,  among 
ow  that  the 

lerm  '  nose- 

rly  enough 
the  steppes, 

the  twelfth 

ath  through 

luTTontal 


.  vol.  i.  pp.  62, 
•etagno,'  p.  liv., 

'  Thousand  and 
irco  Polo,  book 

)3  ;  Plin.  vii.  2. 
346,  358. 


■ 


MYTBOLOOY. 


889 


mutilations  of  savages  is  that  of  Hirotching  the  cars  tu  au 
unormous  size  by  weights  or  f^oils,  and  it  is  thus  verbally 
quite  true  that  there  are  men  whoHn  ears  hang  dovvii  upon 
their  shoulders.  Yet  without  explanation  such  a  phraBi' 
would  be  understood  to  doHcribe,  not  the  appearance  of  a 
real  savage  with  his  ear-lobes  stretched  into  pendant  flt^shy 
lof/ps,  ^)ut  rather  that  of  Piny's  Panotli,  or  of  the  Indian 
\'  r,  lavrdvarana, '  whose  ears  serve  them  for  cloaks,'  or  of 
th-.^  .^Uican  dwarfs,  said  to  use  their  cars  one  for  mattresH 
aid  the  other  for  coverlet  when  they  lie  down.  One  of  the 
most  extravagant  of  these  stories  is  told  by  Fray  Pedro 
Simon  in  California,  where  in  fact  the  territory  of  Oregon 
lias  its  name  from  the  Spanish  term  of  Orejonea,  or  '  Big- 
Ears,'  given  to  the  inhabitants  from  their  practice  of 
stretching  their  ears  with  ornaments.^  Even  purely  meta- 
phorical descriptions,  if  taken  in  a  literal  sense,  are  capable 
of  turning  into  catches,  like  the  story  of  the  horse  with  its 
head  where  its  tail  should  be.  I  have  been  told  by  a 
French  Protestant  from  the  Nismes  district  that  the  epithet 
of  gorgeo  negro,  or  '  black-throat,'  by  which  Catholics 
describe  a  Huguenot,  is  taken  so  literally  that  heretic 
children  are  sometimes  forced  to  open  their  mouths  to 
satisfy  the  orthodox  of  their  being  of  the  usual  colour 
within.  On  examining  the  descriptions  of  savage  tribes  by 
higher  races,  it  appears  that  several  of  the  epithets  usually 
applied  only  need  literalizing  to  turn  into  the  wildest  of  the 
legendary  monster-stories.  Thus  the  Birmese  speak  of  the 
rude  Karens  as  '  dog-men ; '  -  Marco  Polo  describes  the 
Angaman  (Andaman)  islanders  as  brutish  and  savage  can- 
?iibals,  with  heads  like  dogs.-'  ^Elian's  account  of  the  dog- 
headed  people  of  India  is  on  the  face  of  it  an  account  of  a 
savage  race.     The  Kynokephali,  he  says,  are  so  called  from 

*  Plin.  iv.  27  ;  Mela,  iii.  6 ;  Bastian,  '  Oestl.  Asien,*  vol.  i.  p.  120  ;  vol. 
ii.  p.  93  ;  St.  John,  vol.  ii.  p.  117  ;  Marsden,  p.  53  ;  Lane,  '  Thousand  and 
One  N.'  vol.  iii.  pp  !)2.  305;  Petherick,  'Egypt,  &c.'  p.  367;  Burton, 
'Central  Afr.'  vol.  i.  p.  23.'>;  Pedro  Simon,  'Indias  Occidentales,'  p.  7. 

»  Bastian,  '  Oestl   Asien,'  vol.  i.  p.  133. 

'  Harco  Tvik>,  book  iii.  cli.  xviii. 


'-W 


:^PI 

;§'■    : 

j 

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t 

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tl. 


**««»'■««"«' 


390 


MYTHOLOGY. 


their  bodily  appearance,  but  otherwise  they  are  human,  and 
they  go  dressed  in  the  skins  of  beasts ;  they  are  just,  and 
harm  not  men;  they  cannot  speak,  but  roar,  yet  they 
understand  the  language  of  the  Indians ;  they  live  by 
hunting,  being  swift  of  foot,  and  they  cook  their  game  not 
by  fire,  but  by  tearing  it  into  fragments  and  di'ying  it  in  the 
sun  ;  they  keep  goats  and  sheep,  and  drink  the  milk.  The 
naturalist  concludes  by  saying  that  he  mentions  these  fitly 
among  the  irrational  animals,  because  they  have  not  articu- 
late, distinct,  and  human  language.^  This  last  suggestive 
remark  well  states  the  old  prevalent  notion  that  barbarians 
have  no  real  language,  but  are  '  speechless,'  '  tongueless,' 
or  even  mouthless.^  Another  monstrous  people  of  wide 
celebrity  are  Pliny's  Blemmyse,  said  to  be  headless,  and 
accordingly  to  have  their  mouths  and  eyes  in  their  breasts ; 
creatures  over  whom  Prester  John  reigned  in  Asia,  who 
dwelt  far  and  wide  in  South  American  forests,  and  who  to 
our  mediaeval  ancestors  were  as  real  as  the  cannibals  with 
whom  Othello  couples  them : — 

'The  Anthropophagi,  and  men  whose  heads 
Do  grow  beneath  their  shoulders.' 

If,  however,  we  look  in  dictionaries  for  the  Acephali,  we 
may  find  not  actual  headless  monsters,  but  heretics  so  called 
because  their  original  head  or  founder  was  not  known ;  and 
when  the  kingless  Turkoman  hordes  say  of  themselves  *  We 
are  a  people  without  a  head,*  the  metaphor  is  even  more 
plain  and  natural.^     Again,  Moslem  legend  tells    of  the 

'  ^lian,  iv.  46  ;  Plin.  vi.  35  ;  vii.  2.  See  for  other  versions,  Purchas, 
vol.  iv.  p.  1191 ;  vol.  v.  p.  901 ;  Cranz,  p.  267  ;  Lane,  'Thousand  and  One 
Nights,' vol.  iii.  pp.  36,  94,  97,  305;  Davis,  'Carthage,'  p.  230;  Latham, 
'  Descr.  Eth.'  vol.  ii.  p.  83. 

"  Pliii.  V.  8  ;  vi.  24,  35  ;  vii.  2  ;  Mela,  iii.  9  ;  Horberstein  in  Hakluyt. 
vol.  i.  p.  593  ;  Latham,  '  Descr.  Eth.'  vol.  i,  p.  483  ;  Davis,  1.  c.  ;  see  '  Early 
Hist,  of  Mankind,'  p.  77. 

'  Plin.  V.  8  ;  Lane,  vol.  i.  p.  33  ;  vol.  ii.  p.  377  ;  vol.  iii.  p.  81 ;  Eisci- 
menger,  vol.  ii.  p.  559  ;  Mandeville,  p.  243  ;  Raleigh  in  Hakluyt,  vol.  iii. 
pp.  652,  665  ;  Humboldt  and  Bonpland,  vol.  v.  p.  176  ;  Purchas,  vol.  iv. 
p.  1285  ;  vol.  V.  p.  901 ;  Isidor.  Hispal.  s.  v.  'Acephali ;'  Vambery,  p.  310, 


MYTHOLOGY. 


801 


buman,  and 
:e  just,  and 
•,  yet   they 
ey  live  by 
ir  game  not 
ng  it  in  the 
milk.    The 
3  these  fitly 
5  not  articu- 
)  suggestive 
;  barbarians 
tongueless,' 
pie  of  wide 
sadless,  and 
leir  breasts ; 
i  Asia,  who 
and  who  to 
mibals  with 

is 

icephali,  we 
ics  so  called 
cnown ;  and 
nselves  '  We 
even  more 
ells    of  the 

sions,  Purchas, 
isand  and  One 
230;  Latham, 

n  in  Hakluyt, 
c.  ;  see  '  Early 

p.  81 ;  Eiscn- 
akluyt,  vol.  ill. 
urchas,  vol.  iv. 
mbory,  p.  310, 


Shikk  and  the  Nesnas,  creatures  like  one  haK  of  a  split 
man,  with  one  arm,  leg,  and  eye.  Possibly  it  was  thence 
that  the  Zulus  got  their  idea  of  a  tribe  of  half-men,  who  in 
one  of  their  stories  found  a  Zulu  maiden  in  a  cave  and 
thought  she  was  two  people,  but  on  closer  inspection  of  her 
admitted,  '  The  thing  is  pretty !  But  oh  the  two  legs ! ' 
This  odd  fancy  coincides  with  the  simple  metaphor  which 
describes  a  savage  as  only  '  half  a  man,'  semihomo,  as 
Virgil  calls  the  ferocious  Cacus.^  Again,  when  the  Chinese 
compared  themselves  to  the  outer  barbarians,  they  said 
'  We  see  with  two  eyes,  the  Latins  with  one,  and  all  other 
nations  are  blind.'  Such  metaphors,  proverbial  among 
ourselves,  verbally  correspond  with  legends  of  one-eyed 
tribes,  such  as  the  savage  cave-dwelling  Kyklopes.^  Verbal 
coincidence  of  this  kind,  untrustworthy  enough  in  these 
latter  instances,  passes  at  last  into  the  vaguest  fancy.  The 
negroes  called  Europeans  'long-headed,'  using  the  phrase 
in  our  familiar  metaphorical  sense ;  but  translate  it  into 
Greek,  and  at  once  Hesiod's  Makrokephaloi  come  into 
being.^  And,  to  conclude  the  list,  one  of  the  commonest 
of  the  monster- tribes  of  the  Old  and  New  World  is  that 
distinguished  by  having  feet  turned  backward.  Now  there 
is  really  a  people  whose  name,  memorable  in  scientific 
controversy,  describes  them  as  '  having  feet  the  opposite 


'  Lane,  vol.  i.  p.  33  ;  Callaway,  '  Zulu  Tales,*  vol.  i.  pp.  199,  202.  Virg. 
^n.  viii.  194  ;  a  similar  metaphor  is  the  name  of  the  Nimchas,  from  Per- 
sian nim— half,  'Journ.  Eth.  Soc'  vol.  i.  p.  192,  cf.  French  demi-monde. 
Compare  the  *  one-legged '  tribes,  Plin.  vii.  2  ;  Schoolcraft,  '  Indian  Tribes,' 
part  iii.  p.  521 ;  Charlevoix,  vol.  i.  p.  25.  The  Australians  use  the  meta- 
phor 'of  one  leg'  (matta  gyn)  to  describe  tribes  as  of  one  stock,  G.  F. 
Moore,  *  Vocab.'  pp.  5,  71. 

"  Hayton  in  Purchas,  vol.  iii.  p.  108  ;  see  Klemn,  '  C.  G.'  vol.  vi.  p.  129  ; 
Vamb<;ry,  p.  49  ;  Homer,  Odyss.  ix.  ;  Strabo,  i.  2,  12  ;  see  Scherzer,  '  Voy. 
of  Novara,'  vol.  ii.  p.  40  ;  C.  J.  Andersson,  '  Lake  Ngami,  &c.,'  p.  453  ;  Du 
Chaillu,  *  Equatorial  Africa,'  p.  440  ;  Sir  J.  Richardson,  '  Polar  Regions," 
p.  300.  For  tribes  with  more  than  two  eyes,  see  Pliny's  metaphorically 
explained  Nisacffitho)  and  Nisyti,  Plin.  vi.  36;  also  Bastian,  'Menscli,' 
vol.  ii.  p.  414  ;  'Oestl.  Asien,'  vol.  i.  pp.  25,  76  ;  Petherick,  1.  c;  Bowen, 
'  Yoruba  Gr.'  p.  xx. ;  Schirren,  p.  196. 

■'  KOlle,  '  Vei  Gr."  p.  229  ;  Strabo,  i.  2,  35. 


892 


MYTHOLOGY. 


•i^Kv'V 


t 

K. 

IK. 

c 

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» 

K 

k^ 

' 

K 

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t-  . 

a 

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way,'  and  they  still   retain  that  ancient  name  of  Anti- 
podes} 

Returning  from  this  digression  to  the  region  of  philo- 
sophic myth,  we  may  examine  new  groups  of  explanatory 
stories,  produced  from  that  craving  to  know  causes  and 
reasons  which  ever  besets  mankind.  When  the  attention 
of  a  man  in  the  myth-making  stage  of  intellect  is  drawn  to 
any  phenomenon  or  custom  which  has  to  him  no  obvious 
reason,  he  invents  and  tells  a  story  to  account  for  it,  and 
even  if  he  does  not  persuade  himself  that  this  is  a  real 
legend  of  his  forefathers,  the  story-teller  who  hears  it  from 
him  and  repeats  it  is  troubled  with  no  such  difficulty.  Our 
task  in  dealing  with  such  stories  is  made  easy  when  the 
criterion  of  possibility  can  be  brought  to  bear  upon  them. 
It  has  become  a  mere  certainty  to  moderns  that  asbestos  ip 
not  really  salamander's  wool ;  that  morbid  hunger  is  not 
really  caused  by  a  lizard  or  a  bird  in  a  man's  stomach ;  that 
a  Chinese  philosopher  cannot  really  have  invented  the  fire- 
drill  by  seeing  a  bird  peck  at  the  branches  of  a  tree  till 
sparks  came.  The  African  Wakuafi  account  for  their  cattle- 
lifting  proclivities  by  the  calm  assertion  that  Engai,  that  is, 
Heaven,  gave  all  cattle  to  them,  and  so  wherever  there  is 
any  it  is  their  call  to  go  and  seize  it.^  So  in  South  America 
the  fierce  Mbayas  declare  they  received  from  the  Caracara 
a  divine  command  to  make  war  on  all  other  tribes,  killing 
the  men  and  adopting  the  women  and  children.^  But 
though  it  may  be  consistent  with  the  notions  of  these 
savages  to  relate  such  explanatory  legends,  it  is  not  con- 
sistent with  our  notions  to  believe  them.  Fortunately,  too, 
the  ex  post  facto  legends  are  apt  to  come  into  collision  with 
more  authentic  sources  of  information,  or  to  encroach  on 
the  domain  of  valid  history.  It  is  of  no  use  for  the 
Chinese  to  tell  their  stupid  story  of  written  characters 
having  been  invented  from  the  markings  on  a  tortoise's 


'  Plin.  vii.  2  ;  Humboldt  and  Bonpland,  vol.  v.  p.  81. 

"  Krapf,  p.  359. 

"  Southey,  '  Brazil,'  vol.  iii.  p.  390. 


3  of  Anti- 

0.  of  philo- 
ixplanatory 
causes  and 
le  attention 
is  drawn  to 
no  obvious 
t  for  it,  and 
is  is  a  real 
ears  it  from 
culty.    Our 
3y  when  the 
upon  them. 
;  asbestos  ip 
mger  is  not 
omach ;  that 
ited  the  fire- 
pf  a  tree  till 
their  cattle- 
agai,  that  is, 
iver  there  is 
uth  America 
ihe  Caracara 
ibes,  killing 
dren.^     But 
ns  of  these 
is  not  con- 
iinately,  too, 
allision  with 
encroach  on 
use  for  the 
characters 
a  tortoise's 

81. 


MYTHOLOGY. 


393 


shell,  for  the  early  forms  of  such  characters,  plain  and 
simple  pictures  of  objects,  have  been  preserved  in  China  to 
this  day.  Nor  can  we  praise  anything  but  ingenuity  in  the 
West  Highland  legend  that  the  Pope  once  laid  an  interdict 
on  the  land,  but  forgot  to  curse  the  hills,  so  the  people 
tilled  them,  this  story  being  told  to  account  for  those 
ancient  traces  of  tillage  still  to  be  seen  on  the  wild  hill- 
sides, the  so-called  '  elf-furrows.'^  The  most  embarrassing 
cases  of  explanatory  tradition  are  those  which  are  neither 
impossible  enough  to  condemn,  nor  probable  enough  to 
receive.  Ethnographers  who  know  how  world-wide  is  the 
practice  of  defacing  the  teeth  among  the  lower  races,  and 
how  it  only  dies  gradually  out  in  higher  civilization,  natu- 
rally ascribe  the  habit  to  some  general  reason  in  human 
nature,  at  a  particular  stage  of  development.  But  the  mu- 
tilating tribes  themselves  have  local  legends  to  account  for 
local  customs ;  thus  the  Penongs  of  Birmah  and  the  Ba- 
toka  of  East  Africa  both  break  their  front  teeth,  but  the 
one  tribe  says  its  reason  is  not  to  look  like  apes,  the  other 
that  it  is  to  be  like  oxen  and  not  like  zebras.'^  Of  the 
legends  of  tattooing,  one  of  the  oddest  is  that  told  to 
account  for  the  fact  that  while  the  Fijians  tattoo  only  the 
women,  their  neighbours,  the  Tongans,  tattoo  only  the  men. 
It  is  related  that  a  Tongan,  on  his  way  from  Fiji  to  report 
to  his  countrymen  the  proper  custom  for  them  to  observe, 
went  on  his  way  repeating  the  rule  he  had  carefully  learnt 
by  heart,  '  Tattoo  the  women,  but  not  the  men,'  but  un- 
luckily he  tripped  over  a  stump,  got  his  lesson  wrong,  and 
reached  Tonga  repeating  'Tattoo  the  men,  but  not  the 
women,'  an  ordinance  which  they  observed  ever  after. 
How  reasonable  such  an  explanation  seemed  to  the  Poly- 
nesian mind,  may  be  judged  from  the  Samoans  having  a 
version  with  different  details,  and  applied  to  their  own 
instead  of  the  Tongan  islands.^ 

'  D.  Wilson,  'Archaeology,  &c.  of  Scotland,'  p.  123. 

'  Bastian,  'Oestl.  Asien,'  vol.  i.  p.  128;  Livingstone,  p.  532. 

*  Williams,  '  Fiji,'  p.  160  ;  Seemann,  '  Viti,'  p.  113  ;  Turner,  '  Polynesia," 


I; 


^ 


394 


MYTHOLOGY. 


(ftl 


t. 
r. 

n 
I 

t 


t 


All  men  feel  how  wanting  in  sense  of  reality  is  a  story 
with  no  personal  name  to  hang  it  to.  This  want  is  thus 
graphically  expressed  by  Sprenger  the  historian  in  his  life 
of  Mohammed :  '  It  makes,  on  me  at  least,  quite  a  different 
impression  when  it  is  related  that  "  the  Prophet  said  to 
Alkama,"  even  if  I  knew  nothing  whatever  else  of  this 
Alkama,  than  if  it  were  merely  stated  that  "  he  said  to 
somebody." '  The  feeling  which  this  acute  and  learned 
critic  thus  candidly  confesses,  has  from  the  earliest  times, 
and  in  the  minds  of  men  troubled  with  no  such  nice  his- 
toric conscience,  germinated  to  the  production  of  much 
mythic  fruit.  Thus  it  has  come  to  pass  that  one  of  the 
leading  personages  to  be  met  with  in  the  tradition  of  the 
world  is  really  no  more  than — Somebody.  There  is  no- 
thing this  wondrous  creature  cannot  achieve,  no  shape  he 
cannot  put  on  ;  one  only  restriction  binds  him  at  all,  that 
the  name  he  assumes  shall  have  some  sort  of  congruity 
with  the  office  he  undertakes,  and  even  from  this  he  often- 
times breaks  loose.  So  rife  in  our  own  day  is  this  manu- 
facture of  personal  history,  often  fitted  up  with  details  of 
place  and  date  into  the  very  semblance  of  real  chronicle, 
that  it  may  be  guessed  how  vast  its  working  must  have  been 
in  days  of  old.  Thus  the  ruins  of  ancient  buildings,  of 
whose  real  history  and  use  no  trustworthy  tradition  survives 
in  local  memory,  have  been  easily  furnished  by  myth  with  a 
builder  and  a  purpose.  In  Mexico  the  great  Somebody 
assumes  the  name  of  Montezuma,  and  builds  the  aqueduct 
of  Tezcuco ;  to  the  Persian  any  huge  and  antique  ruin  is 
the  work  of  the  heroic  Antar ;  in  Russia,  says  Dr.  Eastian, 
buildings  of  the  most  various  ages  are  set  down  to  Peter 
the  Great,  as  in  Spain  to  Boabdil  or  Charles  V. ;  and 
European  folklore  may  attribute  to  the  Devil  any  old  build- 
ing of  unusual  massiveness,  and  especially  those  stone 
structures   which   antiquaries  now  class   as  prse-historic 


p.  182  (a  similar  legend  told  by  the  Samoans).  Another  tattooing  legend 
in  Latham,  'Descr.  Eth.'  vol.  i.  p.  152;  Baatian,  'Oeatl.  Asien,'  vol.  i. 
p.  112. 


is  a  story 
mt  is  thus 
in  his  life 
a  different 
let  said  to 
Ise  of  this 
he  said  to 
nd  learned 
liest  times, 
;h  nice  his- 
in  of  much 
one  of  the 
Ition  of  the 
^here  is  no- 
ao  shape  he 
at  aU,  that 
)f  congruity 
lis  he  often- 
this  manu- 
,h  details  of 
il  chronicle, 
ist  have  been 
juildings,  of 
,ion  survives 
myth  with  a 
Somebody 
he  aqueduct 
ique  ruin  is 
Dr.  Eastian, 
wn  to  Peter 
es  v.;    and 
y  old  build- 
those  stone 
prffi-historic 

tattooing  legend 
Asien,'  vol.  i. 


MYTHOLOGY. 


395 


monuments.  With  a  more  graceful  thought,  the  Indians  of 
North  America  declare  that  the  imitative  tumuli  of  Ohio, 
great  mounds  laid  out  in  rude  imitation  of  animals,  were 
shaped  in  old  days  by  the  great  Manitu  himself,  in  promise  of 
a  plentiful  supply  of  game  in  the  world  of  spirits.  The  New 
Zealanders  tell  how  the  hero  Kupe  separated  the  North  and 
South  Islands,  and  formed  Cook's  Straits.  Greek  myth 
placed  at  the  gate  of  the  Mediterranean  the  twin  pillars  of 
Herakles  ;  in  more  recent  times  the  opening  of  the  Straits 
of  Gibraltar  became  one  of  the  many  feats  of  Alexander  of 
Macedon.^  Such  a  group  of  stories  as  this  is  no  unfair  test 
of  the  value  of  mere  traditions  of  personal  names  which 
simply  answer  the  questions  that  mankind  have  been  asking 
for  ages  about  the  origin  of  their  rites,  laws,  customs,  arts. 
Some  such  traditions  are  of  course  genuine,  and  we  may  be 
able,  especially  in  the  more  modern  cases,  to  separate  the 
real  from  the  imaginary.  But  it  must  be  distinctly  laid 
down  that,  in  the  absence  of  corroborative  evidence,  every 
tradition  stands  suspect  of  mythology,  if  it  can  be  made  by 
the  simple  device  of  fitting  some  personal  name  to  the 
purely  theoretical  assertion  that  somebody  must  have  intro- 
duced into  the  world  fire-making,  or  weapons,  or  ornaments, 
or  games,  or  agriculture,  or  marriage,  or  any  other  of  the 
elements  of  civilization. 

AmoDg  the  various  matters  which  have  excited  curiosity, 
and  led  to  its  satisfaction  by  explanatory  myths,  are  local 
names.  These,  when  the  popular  ear  has  lost  their  primi- 
tive significance,  become  in  barbaric  times  an  apt  subject 
for  the  myth-maker  to  explain  in  his  peculiar  fashion. 
Thus  the  Tibetans  declare  that  their  lake  Choinioriri  was 
named  from  a  woman  (chomo)  who  was  carried  into  it  by  the 
yak  she  was  riding,  and  cried  in  terror  rl-ri !  The  Arabs 
say  the  founders  of  the  city  of  Sennaar  saw  on  the  river 
bank  a  beautiful  woman  with  teeth  glittering  like  fire, 

'  Bastian, '  Mensch,'  vol  iii.  pp.  167-8  ;  Wilkinson  in  Rawlinson's  '  Hero- 
dotus,' vol.  ii  p.  79  ;  Grimm,  '  D.  M.'  pp.  072-6  ;  W.  G.  Palgrave,  'Arabia,' 
vol.  i.  p.  251 ;  Squier  arid  Davis,  '  Monuments  of  Mississippi  VaUey,' 
p.  184  ;  Taylor,  '  New  Zealand,'  p.  258. 


'M 


396 


MYTHOLOGY. 


k 

C" 

I" 
fe 

I 

k 

i 

ti. 

i 


It 


whence  they  called  the  place  Sinndr,  i.  e.,  '  tooth  of  fire.' 
The  Arkadians  derived  the  name  of  their  town  Trapezus 
from  the  table  (trajyeza),  which  Zeus  ovei-turned  when  the 
wolfish  Lykaon  served  a  child  on  it  for  a  banquet  to  him.^ 
Such  crude  fancies  in  no  way  differ  in  nature  from  English 
local  legends  current  up  to  recent  times,  such  as  that  which 
relates  how  the  Romans,  coming  in  sight  of  where  Exeter 
now  stands,  exclaimed  in  delight,  *  Ecce  terra  ! '  and  thus 
the  city  had  its  name.  Not  long  ago,  a  curious  enquirer 
wished  to  know  from  the  inhabitants  of  Fordinghridge,  or 
as  the  country  people  call  it,  Fardenbridge,  what  the  origin 
of  this  name  might  be,  and  heard  in  reply  that  the  bridge 
was  thought  to  have  been  built  when  wages  were  so  cheap 
that  masons  worked  for  a  '  farden '  a  day.  The  Falmouth 
folks'  story  of  Squire  Pendarvis  and  his  ale  is  well  known, 
how  his  servant  excused  herself  for  selling  it  to  the  sailors, 
because,  as  she  said,  '  The  penny  come  so  quick,'  whence 
the  place  came  to  be  called  Pennycomequich  ;  this  nonsense 
being  invented  to  account  for  an  ancient  Cornish  name, 
probably  Penycunigivic, '  head  of  the  creek  valley.'  Mythic 
fancy  had  fallen  to  a  low  estate  when  it  dwindled  to  such 
remnants  as  this. 

That  personal  names  may  pass  into  nouns,  we,  who  talk 
of  broughams  and  blucfi^rs,  cannot  deny.  But  any  such 
etymology  ought  to  have  contemporary  document  or  some 
equally  forcible  proof  in  its  favour,  for  this  is  a  form  of  ex- 
planation taken  by  the  most  flagrant  myths.  David  the 
painter,  it  is  related,  had  a  promising  pupil  named  Chicque, 
the  son  of  a  fruiterer ;  the  lad  died  at  eighteen,  but  his 
master  continued  to  hold  him  up  to  later  students  as  a 
model  of  artistic  cleverness,  and    hence   arose   the   now 

'  Latham,  *  Descr.  Eth.'  vol.  i.  p.  43  ;  Lejean  in  '  Rev.  des  Deux  Mondes,' 
15  Feb.  1862,  p  856  ;  Apollodor.  iii.  8.  Compare  the  derivation  of  Are- 
quipa  by  the  Peruvians  from  the  words  art!  quepay  =  'yes!  remain,' 
said  to  have  been  addressed  to  the  colonists  by  the  Inca  :  Markham, 
'  Quichua  Gr.  and  Die. ; '  also  the  supposed  etymology  of  Dahome,  Banh- 
ho-men  =  '  on  the  belly  of  Danh,'  from  the  story  of  King  Dako  building 
his  palace  on  the  body  of  the  conquered  King  Danh  :  Burton,  in  'Tr.  Eth. 
8oc.'  vol.  iii,  p,  401. 


MYTHOLOGY. 


397 


3th  of  fire.' 
n  Trapezua 
)d  when  the 
let  to  him.^ 
rom  English 
3  that  which 
^here  Exeter 
/'  and  thus 
ous  enquirer 
Ingbridge,  or 
at  the  origin 
it  the  bridge 
vere  so  cheap 
he  Falmotith 
well  known, 
io  the  sailors, 
uick,'  whence 
this  nonsense 
Cornish  name, 
ley.'     Mythic 
adled  to  such 

we,  who  talk 
But  any  such 
ment  or  some 
a  form  of  ex- 
David  the 
imed  Chicque, 
iteen,  but  his 
mdents  as  a 
•ose  the   now 

B8  Deux  Mondes,' 
erivation  of  Are- 
'  yes !  remain,' 
nca  :  Markham, 
of  Dahome,  Danh- 
ig  Dako  building 
rton,  in'Tr.Eth. 


familiar  term  of  chic.     Etymologists,  a  race  not  wanting 
in  effrontery,  have  hardly  ever  surpassed  this  circumstantial 
canard ;  the  word  chic  dates  at  any  rate  from  the  seventeenth 
century .1    Another  word  with  which  similar  liberty  has 
been  taken,  is  cant.     Steele,  in  the  '  Spectator,'  says  that 
some  people  derive  it  from  the  name  of  one  Andrew  Cant, 
a  Scotch  minister,  who  had  the  gift  of  preaching  in  such  a 
dialect  that  he  was  understood  by  none  but  his  own  congre- 
gation, and  not  by  all  of  them.     This  is,  perhaps,  not  a 
very  accurate  delineation  of  the  real  Andrew  Cant,  who  is 
mentioned  in  '  Whitelock's  Memorials,'  and  seems  to  have 
known  how  to  speak  out  in  very  plain  terms  indeed.     But 
at  any  rate  he  flourished  about  1650,  whereas  the  verb  to 
cant  was  then  already  an  old  word.     To  cante,  meaning  to 
speak,  is  mentioned  in  Harman's  '  List  of  Rogues'  Words,' 
in  1566,  and  in  1587  Harrison  says  of  the  beggars  and 
gypsies  that  they  have  devised  a  language  among  them- 
selves, which  they   name  canting,  but  others  '  Pedlars' 
Frenche.*  ^       Of    all    etymologies    ascribed    to    personal 
names,  one  of  the  most  curious  is  that  of  the  Danse  Ma- 
cabre, or  Dance  of  Death,  so  well  known  from  Holbein's 
pictures.      Its  supposed  author  is  thus  mentioned  in  the 
'  Biographic  Universelle : '    '  Macaber,  potite  allemand,  se- 
rait  tout-a-fait  inconnu  sans  I'ouvrage  qu'on  a  sous  son 
nom.'      This,  it  may  be  added,  is  true  enough,  for  there 
never  was  such  a  person  at  all,  the  Danse  Alacahre  being 
really  Chorea  Machabceoruni,  the  Dance  of  the  Maccabees, 

'  Charnock,  '  Verba  Nominalia,'  s.  v.  '  chic  ; '  see  Francisque-Michel, 
'Argot,'  s.  V. 

"  *  Spectator,'  No.  147  ;  Brand,  '  Pop.  Ant.'  vol.  iii.  p.  93  ;  Hotten,  '  Slang 
Dictionary,'  p.  3  ;  Charnock,  s.  v.  'cant.'  As  to  tlio  real  etymology,  that 
from  the  beggar's  whining  chaiint  is  defective,  for  the  beggar  drops  this 
tone  exactly  when  he  cants,  i.  e.,  talks  jargon  witli  his  follows.  If  cant  is 
directly  from  Latin  cantare,  it  will  correspond  with  Italian  canlare  and 
French  chanter,  both  used  as  slang  words  for  to  speak  (Francisque-Michel, 
'Argot').  A  Keltic  origin  is  more  probable,  Gaelic  and  Irish  cainnt,  caint 
=  talk,  language,  dialect  (see  Wedgwood  '  Etymological  Dictionary ').  The 
Gaelic  equivalents  for  pedlars'  French  or  tramps'  slang,  arc  '  Laidionn 
nan  ceard,'  ^cainnt  cheard,'  i.e.,  tinkers'  Latin  or  jargon,  or  exactly 
'cairds'  cant.'  A  deeper  connexion  between  cainnt  and  cantare  does  not 
affect  this. 


/^JT 


//.'- 


398 


MYTHOLOGY. 


^:Hi 


r 
m 

K 


b. 


■'1 


1 


a  kind  of  pious  pantomime  of  death  performed  in  churches 
in  the  fifteenth  century.  Why  the  performance  received 
this  name,  is  that  the  rite  of  Mass  for  the  dead  is  distin- 
guished by  the  reading  of  that  passage  from  the  twelfth 
chapter  of  Book  II.  of  the  Maccabees,  which  relates  how  the 
people  betook  themselves  to  prayer,  and  besought  the  Lord 
that  the  sin  of  those  who  had  been  slain  among  them  might 
be  wholly  blotted  out ;  for  if  Judas  had  not  expected  that 
the  slain  should  rise  again,  it  had  been  superfluous  and 
vain  to  pray  for  the  dead.^  Traced  to  its  origin,  it  is  thus 
seen  that  the  Danse  Macabre  is  neither  more  nor  less  than 
the  Dance  of  the  Dead. 

It  is  not  an  unusual  thing  for  tribes  and  nations  to  be 
known  by  the  name  of  their  chief,  as  in  books  of  African 
travel  we  read  of  '  Eyo's  people,'  or  '  Kamrazi's  people.' 
Such  terms  may  become  permanent,  like  the  name  of  the 
Osnianli  Turks  taken  from  the  great  Othman,  or  Osman. 
The  notions  of  kinship  and  chieftainship  may  easily  be  com- 
bined, as  where  some  individual  Brian  or  Alpine  may  have 
given  his  name  to  a  clan  of  O'Briens  or  Mac  Alpines.  How 
far  the  tribal  names  of  the  lower  races  may  have  been 
derived  from  individual  names  of  chiefs  or  forefathers,  is  a 
question  on  which  distinct  evidence  is  difficult  to  obtain.  In 
Patagonia  bands  or  subdivisions  of  tribes  are  designated  by 
the  names  of  temporary  chiefs,  every  roving  party  having 
such  a  leader,  who  is  sometimes  even  styled  '  yank,'  i.  e. 
'  father.'  ^  The  Zulus  and  Maoris  were  races  who  paid 
great  attention  to  the  traditional  genealogies  of  their  clan- 
ancestors,  who  were,  indeed,  not  only  their  kinsfolk  but  their 
gods  ;  and  they  distinctly  recognize  the  possibility  of  tribes 
being  named  from  a  deceased  ancestor  or  chief.  The  Kafir 
tribe  of  Ama-Xosa  derives  its  name  from  a  chief,  U-Xosa  ;  ^ 
and  the  Maori  tribes  oi Ngate-Wakaue  smA. Nga-Puhi  claim 


'  See  also  Francisque-Michel,  '  Argot,' s.  v.  'maccabe.  macchabtJe'  =noye. 
'-'  Musters,  'Patagonians,' pp.  6!t,  184. 

'  Dohne,  'Zulu  Die'  p.  417;  Arbousset  and  Daumas,  p.  269;  Waitz, 
vol.  ii.  pp.  349,  352. 


in  churches 
ce  received 
d  is  distiu- 
the  twelfth 
ites  how  the 
ht  the  Lord 
them  might 
icpected  that 
irfluouB  and 
in,  it  is  thus 
lor  less  than 

lations  to  be 
8  of  African 
izi's  people.' 
name  of  the 
n,  or  Osman. 
iasily  be  com- 
ine  may  have 
■pines.    How 
y  have  been 
efathers,  is  a 
,0  obtain.    In 
[esignatcd  by 
tarty  having 
yank,'  i.  e. 
!S  who  paid 
if  their  clan- 
'olk  but  their 
lity  of  tribes 
The  Kafir 
lef,  f/'-Xosa;^ 
\i-Piihi  claim 

Uhabtie'  =noye. 
p.  269  ;  Wiiitz, 


MYTHOLOGY. 


399 


descent  from  chiefs  called  Wakaue  and  Puhi}  Around  this 
nucleus  of  actuality,  however,  there  gathers  an  enormous 
mass  of  fiction  simulating  its  efl'ects.  The  myth-maker, 
curious  to  know  how  any  people  or  country  gained  its  name, 
had  only  to  conclude  that  it  came  from  a  great  ancestor  or 
ruler,  ind  then  the  simple  process  of  turning  a  national  or 
local  title  into  a  personal  name  at  once  added  a  newgenealogy 
to  historical  tradition.  In  some  cases,  the  name  of  the 
imagined  ancestor  is  invented  in  such  form  that  the  local  or 
gentile  name  may  stand  as  grammatically  derived  from  it,  as 
usually  happens  in  real  cases,  like  the  derivation  of  Coesarea 
from  Coisar,  or  of  the  Benedictines  from  Benedict.  But  in 
the  fictitious  genealogy  or  history  of  the  myth-maker,  the 
mere  unaltered  name  of  the  nation,  tribe,  country,  or  city 
often  becomes  without  more  ado  the  name  of  the  eponymic 
hero.  It  has  to  be  remembered,  moreover,  that  countries 
and  nations  can  be  personified  by  an  imaginative  process 
which  has  not  quite  lost  its  sense  in  modern  speech.  France 
is  talked  of  by  politicians  as  an  individual  being,  with  par- 
ticular opinions  and  habits,  and  may  even  be  embodied  as  a 
statue  or  picture  with  suitable  attributes.  And  if  one  were 
to  say  that  Britannia  has  two  daughters,  Canada  and 
Australia,  or  that  she  has  gone  to  keep  house  for  a  decrepit 
old  aunt  called  India,  this  would  be  admitted  as  plain  fact 
expressed  in  fantastic  language.  The  invention  of  ancestries 
from  eponymic  heroes  or  name-ancestors  has,  however,  often 
had  a  serious  effect  in  corrupting  historic  truth,  by  helping 
to  fill  ancient  annals  with  swarms  of  fictitious  genealogies. 
Yet,  when  surveyed  in  a  large  view,  the  nature  of  the  epony- 
mic fictions  is  patent  and  indisputable,  and  so  regular  are 
their  forms,  that  we  could  scarcely  choose  more  telling 
examples  of  the  consistent  processes  of  imagination,  as  shown 
in  the  development  of  myths. 

The  great  number  of  the  eponymic  ancestors  of  ancient 
Greek  tribes  and  nations  makes  it  easy  to  test  them  by  com- 
parison, and  the  test  is  a  destructive  one.     Treat  the  heroic 

■  Shortland,  'Trads.  of  N.  Z.'  p.  224. 


400 


MYTHOLOGY. 


r 

I 
t 


» 

'Hi 

i 
t 


genealogies  they  belong  to  as  traditions  founded  on  real 
history,  and  they  prove  hopelessly  independent  and  incom- 
patible ;  but  consider  them  as  mostly  local  and  tribal  myths, 
and  such  independence  and  incompatibility  become  their 
proper  features.  Mr.  Grote,  whose  tendency  is  to  treat  all 
myths  as  fictions  not  only  unexplained  but  unexplainable, 
here  makes  an  exception,  tracing  the  eponymic  ancestors 
from  whom  Greek  cities  and  tribes  derived  their  legendary 
parentage  to  mere  embodied  local  and  gentile  names.  Thus, 
of  the  fifty  sons  of  Lyka6n,  a  whole  large  group  consists  of 
peisonified  cities  of  Arkadia,  such  as  MantlnSus,  Phigalos, 
Tegeath,  who,  according  to  the  simply  inverting  legend,  are 
called  founders  of  Mantin^a,  Phigalia,  Tegea.  The  f  liher 
of  King  iEakos  was  Zeus,  his  mother  his  own  personifted 
land,  jEgina;  the  city  oiMyMnai  had  not  only  an  anceptress 
MyMn^t  but  an  eponymic  ancestor  as  well,  Mykineus.  Long 
afterwards,  mediaeval  Europe,  stimulated  by  the  splendid 
genealogies  through  which  Rome  had  attached  herself  to 
Greece  and  the  Greek  gods  and  heroes,  discovered  the 
secret  of  rivalling  them  in  the  chroni(,lea  of  GeofFry  of 
Monmouth  and  others,  by  claiming,  as  founders  of  Paris  and 
Tours,  the  Trojans  Paris  and  Turnus,  and  connecting  France 
and  Britain  with  the  Trojan  war  through  Francus,  son  of 
Hector,  and  Brutus,  great  grandson  of  ^neas.  A  remark- 
ably perfect  eponymic  historical  myth  accounting  for  the 
Gypsies  or  Egyptians,  may  be  found  cited  seriously  in 
'  Blackstone's  Commentaries : '  when  Sultan  Selim  con- 
quered Egypt  in  1517,  several  of  the  natives  refused  to  sub- 
mit to  the  Turkish  yoke,  and  revolted  under  one  Zinganeus, 
whence  the  Turks  called  them  Zinganees,  but,  being  at  length 
surrounded  and  banished,  they  agreed  to  disperse  in  small 
parties  over  the  world,  &c.,  &c.  It  is  curious  to  watch 
Milton's  mind  emerging,  but  not  wholly  emerging,  from  the 
state  of  the  mediaeval  chronicler.  He  mentions  in  the 
beginning  of  his  '  History  of  Britain,'  the  '  outlandish  fig- 
ment '  of  the  four  kings,  Magus,  Saron,  Druis,  and  Bardus  ; 
he  has  no  approval  for  the  giant  Albion,  son  of  Neptune,  who 


ed  on  real 
and  incom- 
ibal  myths, 
icome  their 
to  treat  all 
jxplainable, 
c  ancestors 
r  legendary 
ames.  Thus, 
J  consists  of 
18,  Phigalos, 
»  legend,  are 
The  f  ither 
I  persor-iHed 
m  anceptress 
;eneu8.  Long 
the  splendid 
3d  herself  to 
acovered  the 
f  Geoffry  of 
of  Paris  and 
icting  France 
',ncu8,  son  of 
A  remark- 
iting  for  the 
I  seriously  in 
Selim  con- 
fused to  Bub- 
Le  Zinganeus, 
^ing  at  length 
^rse  in  small 
lus  to  watch 
[ing,  from  the 
lions  in  the 
itlandish  fig- 
md  Bardua  ; 
leptune,  who 


MYTHOLOOY. 


401 


subdued  the  island  and  called  it  after  his  own  name ;  he 
scoffs  at  the  four  sons  of  Japhet,  called  Francua,  Romanun, 
Alemannua,  and  Britto.  But  when  he  comes  to  Brutua 
and  the  Trojan  legends  of  old  English  history,  his  sceptical 
courage  fails  him :  '  those  old  and  inborn  names  of  succes- 
sive kings,  never  any  to  have  bin  real  persons,  or  don  in  their 
lives  at  least  som  part  of  what  so  long  hath  bin  remember'd, 
cannot  be  thought  without  too  strict  an  incredulity.'^ 

Among  ruder  races  of  the  world,  asserted  genealogies  of 
this  class  may  be  instanced  in  South  American  tribes  called 
the  Amoipira  and  Potyuara^-  Khond  clans  called  Baaka  and 
Jakao,^  Turkoman  hordes  called  Yomut,  Te]clce,&n.dL  Chaudor,* 
all  of  them  professing  to  derive  their  designations  from 
ancestors  or  chiefs  who  bore  as  individuals  these  very  names. 
Where  criticism  can  be  brought  to  bear  on  these  genealogies, 
its  effect  is  often  such  as  drove  Brutus  and  his  Trojans  out 
of  English  history.  When  there  appear  in  the  genealogy  of 
Haussa,  in  West  Africa,  plain  names  of  towns  like  Kano  and 
Katseva,^  it  is  natural  to  consider  these  towns  to  have  been 
personified  into  mythic  ancesi/ors.  Mexican  tradition  assigns 
a  whole  set  of  eponymic  ancestors  or  chiefs  to  the  various 
races  of  the  land,  as  Mexi  the  founder  of  Mexico,  Chichi- 
mecatl  the  first  king  of  the  Chichimeca,  and  so  forth,  down  to 
Otomitl  the  ancestor  of  the  Otomis,  whose  very  name  by  its 
termination  betrays  its  Aztec  invention."  The  Brazilians 
account  for  the  division  of  the  Tupia  and  Guarania,  by  the 
legend  of  two  ancestral  brothers,  Tupi  and  Guarani,  who 


'  On  the  adoption  of  imaginary  ancestors  as  connected  with  the  fiction  of 
a  common  descent,  and  the  important  political  and  religious  effects  of  these 
proceedings,  see  especially  Grote,  '  History  of  Greece,'  vol.  i ;  McLennan, 
'Primitive  Marriage;'  Maine,  'Ancient  Law.' Interesting  details  on  epony- 
mic ancestors  in  Pott,  '  Anti-Kaulen,  oder  Mythische  Vorstellungen  vom 
Ursprunge  der  VOlker  und  Sprachen.' 

"  Martius,  '  Ethnog.  Amer.'  vol.  i.  p.  54  ;  see  p.  283. 

'  Macpherson,  '  India,'  p.  78. 

*  Vambery,  'Central  Asia,'  p.  325  ;  see  also  Latham,  'Descr.  Eth.' vol.  i. 
p.  456  (Ostyaks")  ;  Georgi,  '  Reise  im  Russ.  Reich,'  vol.  i.  242  (Tunguz). 

»  Barth,  '  N,  &  Centr.  Afr.'  vol.  ii.  p.  71. 

•  J.  G.  Muller,  'Amer.  Urrelig.'  p.  574. 

VOL.  I.  D  d 


I 


Ai- 


1 


402 


MYTHOLOOY. 


t, 

c 

r 

h 


1 

'9 


1     a 


I 


quarrelled  and  separated,  each  with  his  followers :  hero  an 
opouymio  origin  of  the  story  is  made  likely  by  the  word 
Ouarani  not  being  an  old  national  name  at  all,  but  merely 
the  designation  of  *  warriors '  given  by  the  missionaries  to 
certain  tribes.^  And  when  such  facts  are  considered  as  that 
North  American  clans  named  after  animals,  Beaver,  Gray- 
Jish,  and  the  like,  account  for  these  names  by  simply  claim- 
ing the  very  creatures  themselves  as  ancestors,''  the  tendency 
of  general  criticism  will  probably  be  not  so  much  in  favour 
of  real  forefathers  and  chiefs  who  left  their  names  to  their 
tribes,  as  of  eponymio  ancestors  created  by  backwards 
imitation  of  such  inheritance. 

The  examination  of  eponymic  legend,  however,  must  by 
no  means  stop  short  at  the  destructive  stage.  In  fact,  when 
it  has  undergone  the  sharpest  criticism,  it  only  displays  the 
more  clearly  a  real  historic  value,  not  less  perhaps  than  if 
all  the  names  it  records  were  real  names  of  ancient  chiefs. 
With  all  their  fancies,  blunders,  and  shortcomings,  the  heroic 
genealogies  preserve  early  theories  of  nationality,  traditions 
of  migration,  invasion,  connexion  by  kindred  or  intercourse. 
The  ethnologists  of  old  days,  borrowing  the  phraseology  of 
myth,  stated  what  they  looked  on  as  the  actual  relations  of 
races,  in  a  personifying  language  of  which  the  meaning  may 
still  be  readily  interpreted.  The  Greek  legend  of  the  twin 
brothers  Danaos  and  jEgyptoa,  founders  of  the  nations  of 
the  Dunaoi  or  Homeric  Greeks  and  of  the  ^(jyptlans, 
represents  a  distinct  though  weak  ethnological  theory. 
Their  eponymic  myth  of  Hellen,  the  personified  race  of  the 
Hellenes,  is  another  and  more  reasonable  ethnological  docu- 
ment stating  kinship  among  four  great  branches  of  the 
Greek  race :  the  three  sons  of  Hellen,  it  relates,  were 
Aiolos,  Duro8,  and  Xouthoa  ;  the  first  two  gave  their  names 
to  the  ^ollans  and  Dorians,  the  third  had  sons  called 
Aehaios  and  Ion,  whose  names  passed  as  a  heritage  to  the 


'  Martius,  vol.  i.  pp.  180-4  ;  Waitz,  vol.  iii.  p.  416. 

'  Schoolcraft,  '  Indian  Tribes,'  part  i.  p.  310,  part  iii.  p.  268,  see  part  ii. 
p.  49  ;  Catlin,  vol.  ii.  p.  128  ;  J.  G.  Muller,  pp.  134,  327. 


rs :  boro  an 
y  the  word 
but  merely 
Bionaries  to 
ered  as  that 
laver,  Cray- 
mply  claim- 
he  tendency 
jh  in  favour 
tnes  to  their 
backwards 

ver,  must  by 
[n  fact,  when 
displays  the 
haps  than  if 
acient  chiefs. 
gs,  the  heroic 
ty,  traditions 
•  intercourse, 
iraseology  of 
1  relations  of 
neaning  may 
of  the  twin 
|e  nations  of 
yE(jyptian8, 
:ical   theory. 
race  of  the 
ogical  docu- 
iches  of  the 
•elates,  were 
their  names 
sons  called 
Iritage  to  the 

268,  seo  part  ii. 


MYTHOLOOY. 


403 


Achaioi  and  lonians.  The  belief  of  the  Lydiana,  Mydans, 
and  Karians  an  to  their  national  kinship  is  well  expressed 
in  the  genealogy  in  Herodotus,  which  traces  their  descent 
from  the  three  brothers  Lydon,  Myaos,  and  Kar}  The 
Persian  legend  of  Feridun  (Thraetaona)  and  his  three  sons, 
/re;,  Tur,  and  Selm,  distinguishes  the  two  nationalities  of 
Iranian  and  TuranianXQ-  Persian  and  Tatar.'*  The  national 
genealogy  of  the  Afghans  is  worthy  of  remark.  It  runs 
thus:  Melik  Talut  (King  Saul)  had  two  sons,  Berkia  and 
Irmia  (Berekiah  and  Jeremiah),  who  served  David  ;  the  son 
of  Berkia  was  Afghan,  and  the  son  of  Irmia  was  Uabek. 
Thanks  to  the  aquiline  noses  of  the  Afghans,  and  to  their 
use  of  Biblical  personal  names  derived  from  Biblical  sources, 
the  idea  of  their  being  descendants  of  the  lost  tribes  of 
Israel  found  great  credence  among  European  scholars  up  to 
the  present  century.'*  Yet  the  pedigree  is  ethnologically 
absurd,  for  the  whole  source  of  the  imagined  cousinship  of 
the  Aryan  Afghan  and  the  Turanian  UsbeJc,  so  distinct  both 
in  feature  and  in  language,  appears  to  be  in  their  union  by 
common  Mohammedanism,  while  the  reckless  jumble  of 
sham  history,  which  derives  both  from  a  Semitic  source,  is 
only  too  characteristic  of  Moslem  chronicle.  Among  the 
Tatars  is  found  a  much  more  reasonable  national  pedigree ; 
in  the  13th  century,  William  of  Ruysbroek  relates,  as  sober 
circumstantial  history,  that  they  were  originally  called 
Turks  from  Turk  the  eldest  son  of  Japhet,  but  one  of  their 
princes  left  his  dominions  to  his  twin  sons,  Tatar  sind  Mongol, 
which  gave  rise  to  the  distinction  that  has  ever  since  pre- 
vailed between  these  two  nations."*  Historically  absurd,  this 
legend  states  what  appears  the  unimpeachable  ethnological 


»  Qrote,  '  Hist,  of  Greece ; '  Pauaan.  iii.  20 ;  Diod.  Sic.  v.  ;  Apollodor. 
Bibl.  i.  7,  3,  vi.  1,  4  ;  Herodot.  i.  171. 

'  Mux  Miiller  in  Bunacn,  vol.  i.  p.  338  ;  Tabari,  part  i.  eh.  xlv.  Ixix. 

3  Sir  W,  Jones  in  'As.  Res.'  toL  ii.  p.  24  ;  Vansittart,  ibid.  p.  67 ;  see 
Campbell,  in  '  Journ.  As.  Soo.  Bengal,'  1866,  part  ii.  p.  7. 

*  Gul.  do  Rubruquis  in  Pinkcrton,  vol.  vii.  p.  23  ;  Gabelontz  in  'Zeitschr. 
fiir  die  Kunde  des  Morgenlandea,'  vol.  ii.  p.  73  ;  Schmidt,  '  VOlker  Mittel- 
Asien,'  p.  6. 

D  d  2 


If 


404 


MYTHOLOGY. 


r 

'^-^ 

I 

,^ 

Iv. 

k. 

'■ 

'     e. 

t 

"     \ 

■  1^ 

r, 

fe 

'   «? 

1 

k 

'•i 

K 

;i 

f 

ll, 

;i 

1 

» 

•<» 

fact,  that  the  Turks,  Mongols,  and  Tatars  are  closely- 
connected  branches  of  one  national  stock,  and  we  can  only 
dispute  in  it  what  seems  an  exorbitant  claim  on  the  part 
of  the  Turk  to  represent  the  head  of  the  family,  the 
ancestor  of  the  Mongol  and  the  Tatar.  Thus  these  eponymic 
national  genealogies,  mythological  in  form  out  ethnological 
in  substance,  embody  opinions  of  which  we  may  admit  or 
deny  the  truth  or  value,  but  which  we  must  recognize 
as  distinctly  ethnological  documents.^ 

It  thus  appears  that  early  ethnology  is  habitually  ex- 
pressed in  a  metaphorical  language,  in  which  lands  and 
nations  are  personified,  and  their  relations  indicated  by 
terms  of  personal  kinship.  This  description  applies  to 
that  important  document  of  ancient  ethnology,  the  table  of 
nations  in  the  10th  chapter  of  Genesis.  In  some  cases  it  is 
a  problem  of  minute  and  difficult  criticism  to  distinguish 
among  its  ancestral  names  those  which  are  simply  local  or 
national  designations  in  personal  form.  But  to  critics  con- 
versant with  the  ethnic  genealogies  of  other  peoples,  such 
as  have  here  been  quoted,  simple  inspection  of  this  national 
list  may  suffice  to  show  that  part  of  its  names  are  not  names 
of  real  men,  but  of  personified  cities,  lands,  and  races. 
The  city  Zidon  (IT'S)  is  brother  to  Reth  (nn)  the  father  of 
the  Hittites,  and  next  follow  in  person  the  Jebusite  and 
the  Amorite.  Among  plain  names  of  countries,  Cush  or 
-Ethiopia  (Kna)  begets  Nimrod,  Asshur  or  Assyria  (mt^N) 
builds  Nineveh,  and  even  the  dual  Mizraim  (onxc),  the  'two 
Egypts,'  usually  regarded  as  signifying  Upper  and  Lower 
Egypt,  appears  in  the  line  of  generations  as  a  personal  son 
and  brother  of  other  countries,  and  ancestor  of  populations. 
The  Aryan  stock  is  clearly  recognized  in  personifications 
of  at  least  two  of  its  members,  Madai  (^*id)  the  Mede, 
and  Javan  {\\<)  the  Ionian.  And  as  regards  the  family  to 
which  the  Israelites  themselves  belong,  if  Canaan  (jy^D),  the 
father  of  Zidon  (n^if),  be  transferred  to  it  to  represent  the 

'  See  also  Pott,  '  Anti-Kaulen,'  pp.  19,  23  ;  '  Raason,'  pp.  70, 153  ;  and  re- 
marks on  colonization-myths  in  Max  Miiller,  'Chips,'  vol.  ii.  p.  68. 


I 
i 


re  closely- 
e  can  only 
m  the  part 
family,  the 
Be  eponymic 
3thnological 
ly  admit  or 
st  recognize 

bitually  ex- 
ti  lands  and 
indicated  by 
I  applies  to 
,  the  table  of 
ne  cases  it  is 
J  distinguish 
nply  local  or 
,0  critics  con- 
peoples,  such 
this  national 
ixe  not  names 
and  races. 
|the  father  of 
IJebusite  and 
|ries,  Cuah  or 
ssyria  (nws) 
i^d),  the'two 
|r  and  Lower 
personal  son 
populations, 
[rsonifications 
))  the    3Iede, 
the  family  to 
lan  (iy33),  the 
represent  the 

[70,158;  andre- 
ii.  p.  68. 


MYTHOLOaY. 


405 


Phcenicians,  by  the  side  of  Asahur  ('>1B'N),  Aram  (Din), 
Eber  (iip),  and  the  other  descendants  of  Shem,  the  result 
will  be  mainly  to  arrange  the  Semitic  stock  according 
to  the  ordinary  classification  of  modern  comparative 
philology. 

Turning  now  from  cases  where  mythologic  phrase  serves 
as  a  medium  for  expressing  philosophic  opinion,  let  us 
quickly  cross  the  district  where  fancy  assumes  the  sem- 
blance of  explanatory  legend.  The  mediaeval  schoolmen 
have  been  justly  laughed  at  for  their  habit  of  translating 
plain  facts  into  the  terms  of  metaphysics,  and  then 
solemnly  offering  them  in  this  scientific  guise  as  explana- 
tions of  themselves — accounting  for  opium  making  people 
sleep,  by  its  possession  of  a  dormitive  virtue.  The  myth- 
naker's  proceedings  may  in  one  respect  be  illustrated  by 
comparing  them  with  this.  Half  mythology  is  occupied,  as 
many  a  legend  cited  in  these  chapters  has  shown,  in  shaping 
the  familiar  facts  of  daily  life  into  imaginary  histories  of 
their  own  cause  and  origin,  childlike  answers  to  those  world- 
old  questions  of  whence  and  why,  which  the  savage  asks  as 
readily  as  the  sage.  So  familiar  is  the  nature  of  such  de- 
scription in  the  dress  of  history,  that  its  easier  examples 
translate  off-hand.  When  the  Samoans  say  that  ever  since 
the  great  battle  among  the  plantains  and  bananas,  the 
vanquished  have  hung  down  their  heads,  while  the  victor 
stands  proudly  erect,^  who  can  mistake  the  simple  metaphor 
which  compares  the  upright  and  the  drooping  plants  to  a 
conqueror  standing  among  his  beaten  foes  ?  In  simile  just 
as  obvious  lies  the  origin  of  another  Polynesian  legend, 
which  relates  the  creation  of  the  coco-nut  from  a  man's 
head,  the  chestnuts  from  his  kidneys,  and  the  yams  from 
his  legs.'^  To  draw  one  more  example  from  the  mythology 
of  plants,  how  transparent  is  the  Ojibwa  fancy  of  that 
heavenly  youth  with  green  robe  and  waving  feathers,  whom 
for  the  good  of  men  the  Indian  overcame  and  buried,  and 

»  Seemann,  '  Viti,'  p.  311 ;  Turner,  '  Polynesia,'  p.  252. 
"  Ellis,  -  Folyn.  Res.'  vol.  i.  p.  69. 


/ 


406 


MYTHOLOaY. 


k,' 
t     ^ 

m. 

c. 
m 

M 

i 


t 

'« 


ii. 


1 


who  sprang  again  from  his  grave  as  the  Indian  corn,  Mon- 
damin,  the  *  Spirit's  grain.'  *  The  New  Forest  peasant 
deems  that  the  marl  he  digs  is  still  red  with  the  blood  of 
his  ancient  foes  the  Danes;  the  Maori  sees  on  the  red  cliffs 
of  Cook's  Straits  the  blood-stains  that  Kupe  made  when, 
mourning  for  the  death  of  his  daughter,  he  cut  his  forehead 
with  pieces  of  obsidian ;  in  the  spot  where  Buddha  offered 
his  own  body  to  feed  the  starved  tigi-ess's  cubs,  his  blood 
for  ever  reddened  the  soil  and  the  trees  and  flowers.  The 
modern  Albanian  still  sees  the  stain  of  slaughter  in  streams 
running  red  with  earth,  as  to  the  ancient  Greek  the  river 
that  flowed  by  Bybloa  bore  down  in  its  summer  floods  the 
red  blood  of  Adonis.  The  Cornishman  knows  from  the  red 
filmy  growth  on  the  brook  pebbles  that  murder  has  been 
done  there ;  John  the  Baptist's  blood  still  grows  in 
Germany  on  his  day,  and  peasants  still  go  out  to  search  for 
it ;  the  red  meal  fungus  is  blood  dropped  by  the  flying 
Huns  when  they  hurt  their  feet  against  the  high  tower- 
roofs.  The  traveller  in  India  might  see  on  the  ruined  walls 
of  Ganga  Raja  thu  traces  of  the  blood  of  the  citizens  spilt 
in  the  siege,  and  yet  more  marvellous  to  relate,  at  St. 
Denis's  church  in  Cornwall,  the  blood-stains  on  the  stones 
fell  there  when  the  saint's  head  was  cut  off  somewhere  else.^ 
Of  such  translations  of  descriptive  metaphor  under  thin 
pretence  of  history,  every  collection  of  myth  is  crowded 
with  examples,  but  it  strengthens  our  judgment  of  the  com- 
bined consistency  and  variety  of  what  may  be  called  the 
mythic  language,  to  extract  from  its  dictionary  such  a  group 
as  this,  which  in  variously  imaginative  fashion  describes 
the  appearance  of  a  blood-red  stain. 


»  Schoolcraft,  '  Algic  Res.'  vol.  i.  p.  122  ;  '  Indian  Tribes,'  part  i.  p.  320, 
part  ii.  p.  230. 

"  J.  R.  Wise,  '  The  New  Forest,'  p.  160  ;  Taylor,  '  New  Zealand,'  p.  268  ; 
Max  Muller,  '  Chips,'  vol.  i.  p.  249  ;  M.  A.  Walker,  '  Macedonia,'  p.  192  ; 
Movers,  '  PhOnizier,'  vol.  i.  p.  665  ;  Lucian.  de  Deft  Syrift,  8  ;  Hunt,  '  Pop. 
Rom.'  2nd  Series,  p.  15  ;  Wuttlje,  '  Volksaberglaube,'  pp.  16,  94  ;  Bastian, 
'  Mensch,'  vol.  ii.  p.  59,  vol.  iii.  p.  185  ;  Buchanan,  '  Mysore,  Ac'  in  Pinker- 
ton,  vol.  viii.  p.  714. 


corn,  Mon- 
st  peasant 
le  blood  of 
e  red  cliffs 
nade  when, 
is  forehead 
dha  offered 
1,  his  blood 
wers.     The 
•  in  streams 
k  the  river 
r  floods  the 
rom  the  red 
er  has  been 
grows    in 
o  search  for 
'  the  flying 
tiigh  tower- 
ruined  walls 
tizens  spilt 
ate,  at  St. 
the  stones 
where  else.^ 
under  thin 
is  crowded 
of  the  corn- 
called  the 
ich  a  group 
n  describes 


part  i.  p.  320, 

land,'  p.  268  ; 
)nia,'  p.  192  ; 

Hunt,  'Pop. 

94 ;  Bastian, 
;c.'  in  Pinker- 


r    'I 


MYTHOLOGY. 


407 


The  merest  shadowy  fancy  or  broken-down  metaphor, 
when  once  it  gains  a  sense  of  reality,  may  begin  to  be 
spoken  of  as  an  actual  event.  The  Moslems  have  heard  the 
very  stones  praise  Allah,  not  in  simile  only  but  in  fact,  and 
among  them  the  saying  that  a  man's  fate  is  written  on  his 
forehead  has  been  materialized  into  a  belief  that  it  can  be 
deciphered  from  the  letter-like  markings  of  the  sutures  of 
his  skull.  One  of  the  miraculous  passages  in  the  life  of 
Mohammed  himself  is  traced  plausibly  by  Sprenger  to 
such  a  pragmatized  metaphor.  The  angel  Gabriel,  legend 
declares,  opened  the  prophet's  breast,  and  took  a  black 
clot  from  his  heart,  which  he  washed  with  Zemzem  water 
and  replaced ;  details  are  given  of  the  angel's  dress  and 
golden  basin,  and  Anas  ibn  Malik  declared  he  had  seen  the 
very  mark  where  the  wound  was  sewn  up.  We  may  venture 
with  the  historian  to  ascribe  this  marvellous  incident  to  the 
familiar  metaphor  that  Mohammed's  heart  was  divinely 
opened  and  cleansed,  and  indeed  he  does  say  in  the  Koran 
that  God  opened  his  heaii).^  A  single  instance  is  enough  to 
represent  the  same  habit  in  Christian  legend.  Marco  Polo 
relates  how  in  1225  the  Khalif  of  Bagdad  commanded  the 
Christians  of  his  dominions,  under  penalty  of  death  or 
Islam,  to  justify  their  Scriptural  text  by  removing  a  certain 
mountain.  Now  there  was  among  them  a  shoemaker,  who, 
having  been  tempted  to  excess  of  admiration  for  a  woman, 
had  plucked  out  his  offending  eye.  This  man  commanded 
the  mountain  to  remove,  which  it  did  to  the  terror  of  the 
Khalif  and  all  his  people,  and  since  then  the  anniversary  of 
the  miracle  has  been  kept  holy.  The  Venetian  traveller, 
after  the  manner  of  mediaeval  writers,  records  the  story 
without  a  symptom  of  suspicion;'^  yet  to  our  minds  its 
whole  origin  so  obviously  lies  in  three  verses  of  St. 
Matthew's  gospel,  that  it  is  needless  to  quote  them.  To 
modern  taste  such  wooden  fictions  as  these  are  i'l^r  from 
attractive.     In  fact  the  pragmatizer  is  a  stupid  creature ; 

'  Sprenger,  '  Leben  des  Mohammad,'  vol.  i.  pp.  78, 119,  162,  810. 
»  Marco  Polo,  book  i.  oh.  viii. 


408 


MYTHOLOGY. 


S^ 


-  li. 

r.  ;:' 

ii,  " 

:  I 


nothing  is  too  beautiful  or  too  sacred  to  be  made  dull  and 
vulgar  by  his  touch,  for  it  is  through  the  very  incapacity  of 
his  mind  to  hold  an  abstract  idea  that  he  is  forced  to 
embody  it  in  a  material  incident.  Yet  wearisome  as  he 
may  be,  it  is  none  the  less  needful  to  understand  him,  to 
acknowledge  the  vast  influence  he  has  had  on  the  belief  of 
mankind,  and  to  appreciate  him  as  representing  in  its 
extreme  abuse  that  tendency  to  clothe  every  thought  in  a 
concrete  shape,  which  has  in  all  ages  been  a  mainspring  of 
mythology. 

Though  allegory  cannot  maintain  the  large  place  often 
claimed  for  it  in  mythology,  it  has  yet  had  too  much  influ- 
ence to  be  passed  over  in  this  survey.  It  is  true  that  the 
search  for  allegorical  explanation  is  a  pursuit  that  has  led 
many  a  zealous  explorer  into  the  quagmires  of  mysticism. 
Yet  there  are  cases  in  which  allegory  is  certainly  used  with 
historical  intent,  as  for  instance  in  the  apocryphal  Book  of 
Enoch,  with  its  cows  and  sheep  which  stand  for  Israelites, 
and  asses  and  wolves  for  Midianites  and  Egyptians,  these 
creatures  figuring  in  a  pseudo-prophetic  sketch  of  Old 
Testament  chronicles.  As  for  moral  allegory,  it  is  im- 
mensely plentiful  in  the  world,  although  its  limits  are 
narrower  than  mythologists  of  past  centuries  have  sup- 
posed. It  is  now  reasonably  thought  preposterous  to  inter- 
pret the  Greek  legends  as  moral  apologues,  after  the  manner 
of  Herakleides  the  philosopher,  who  could  discern  a  parable 
of  repentant  prudence  in  Athene  seizing  Achilles  when  just 
about  to  draw  his  sword  on  Agamemnon.^  Still,  such  a 
mode  of  interpretation  has  thus  much  to  justify  it,  that 
numbers  of  the  fanciful  myths  of  the  world  are  really  alle- 
gories. There  is  allegory  in  the  Hesiodic  myth  of  Pandora, 
whom  Zeus  sent  down  to  men,  decked  with  golden  band 
and  garland  of  spring  flowers,  fit  cause  of  longing  and  the 
pangs  of  love,  but  using  with  a  dog-like  mind  her  gifts  of 
lies  and  treachery  and  pleasant  speech.  Heedless  of  his 
wiser  brother's  words,  the  foolish  Epimetheus  took  her; 

»  Grote,  vol.  i.  p.  347. 


MYTHOLOGY. 


409 


le  dull  and 
capacity  of 
3  forced  to 
lome  as  he 
nd  him,  to 
le  belief  of 
;ing  in  its 
lought  in  a 
,inspring  of 

place  often 
much  influ- 
rue  that  the 
that  has  led 
mysticism. 
[y  used  with 
bal  Book  of 
>r  Israelites, 
ptians,  these 
tch   of  Old 
it  is  im- 
limits   are 
have  sup- 
)us  to  inter- 
the  manner 
rn  a  parable 
s  when  just 
till,  such  a 
fy  it,  that 
really  alle- 
[)f  Pandora, 
olden  band 
ng  and  the 
ler  gifts  of 
less  of  his 
took  her; 


she  raised  the  lid  of  the  great  cask  and  shook  out  the  evils 
that  wander  among  mankind,  and  the  diseases  that  by  day 
and  night  come  silently  bringing  ill;  she  set  on  the  lid 
again  and  shut  Hope  in,  that  evil  might  be  ever  hopeless  to 
mankind.  Shifted  to  fit  a  different  moral,  the  allegory 
remained  in  the  later  version  of  the  tale,  that  the  cask  held 
not  curses  but  blessings  ;  these  were  let  go  and  lost  to  men 
when  thv  vessel  was  too  curiously  opened,  while  Hope  alone 
was  left  behind  for  comfort  to  the  luckless  human  race.^ 
Yet  the  primitive  nature  of  such  legends  underlies  the 
moral  shape  upon  them.  Zeus  is  no  allegoric  fiction,  and 
Prometheus,  unless  modern  mythologists  judge  him  very 
wrongly,  has  a  meaning  far  deeper  than  parable.  Xenophon 
tells  (after  Prodikos)  the  story  of  Herakles  choosing  between 
the  short  and  easy  path  of  pleasure  and  the  long  and  toil- 
some path  of  virtue,^  but  though  the  mythic  hero  may  thus 
be  made  to  figure  in  a  moral  apologue,  an  imagination  so 
little  in  keeping  with  his  unethic  nature  jars  upon  the 
reader's  mind. 

The  general  relation  of  allegory  to  pure  myth  can  hardly 
be  brought  more  clearly  into  view  than  in  a  class  of  stories 
familiar  to  every  child,  the  Beast-fables.  From  the  ordinary 
civilized  point  of  view  the  allegory  in  such  fictions  seems 
fundamental,  the  notion  of  a  moral  lesson  seems  bound  up 
with  their  very  nature,  yet  a  broader  examination  tends  to 
prove  the  allegorical  growth  as  it  were  parasitic  on  an  older 
trunk  of  myth  without  moral.  It  is  only  by  an  effort  of  intel- 
lectual reaction  that  a  modern  writer  can  imitate  in  parable 
the  beast  of  the  old  Beast-fable.  No  wonder,  for  the 
creature  has  become  to  his  mind  a  monster,  only  con- 
ceivable as  a  caricature  of  man  made  to  carry  a  moral  lesson 
or  a  satire.  But  among  savages  it  is  not  so.  To  their 
minds  the  semi-human  be»,st  is  no  fictitious  creature,  in- 
vented to  preach  or  sneer,  he  is  all  but  a  reality.  Beast- 
fables  are  not  nonsense  to  men  who  ascribe  to  the  lower 
animals  a  power  of  speech,  and  lock  on  them  as  partaking 


'  Welcker,  vol.  i.  p.  756. 


*  Xeno^ii.'.  Memorabiiia,  ii.  1. 


410 


MYTHOLOGY. 


I- 

•  ■  =; 
Mi 


i 


of  moral  human  nature  ;  to  men  in  whose  eyes  any  hysena 
or  wolf  may  probably  bo  a  man-hysena  or  a  werewolf ;  to 
men  who  ,bo  utterly  believe  '  that  the  soul  of  our  grandam 
might  haply  inhabit  a  bird '  that  they  will  really  regulate 
their  own  diet  so  as  to  avoid  eating  an  ancestor ;  to  men  an 
integral  part  of  whose  religion  may  actually  be  the  worship 
of  beasts.  Such  beliefs  belong  even  now  to  half  mankind, 
and  among  such  the  beast-stories  had  their  first  home. 
Even  the  Australians  tell  their  quaint  beast-tales,  of  the 
Rat,  the  Owl,  and  the  fat  Blaokfellow,  or  of  Pussy-brother 
who  singed  his  friends'  noses  wnile  they  were  asleep.^ 
The  Kamchadals  have  an  elaborate  myth  of  the  adventures 
of  their  stupid  deity  Kutka  with  the  Mice  who  played  tricks 
upon  him,  such  as  painting  his  face  like  a  woman's,  so  that 
when  he  looked  in  the  water  he  fell  in  love  with  himself.'^ 
Beast-tales  abound  among  such  races  as  the  Polynesians 
and  the  ITorth  American  Indians,  who  value  in  them  inge- 
nuity of  incident  and  neat  adaptation  of  the  habits  and 
characters  of  the  creatures.  Thus  in  a  legend  of  the  Flat- 
head Indians,  the  Little  Wolf  found  in  cloudland  his  grand- 
sires  the  Spiders  with  their  grizzled  hair  and  long  crooked 
nails,  and  they  spun  balls  of  thread  to  let  him  down  to 
earth ;  when  he  came  down  and  found  his  wife  the  Speckled 
Duck,  whom  the  Old  Wolf  had  taken  from  him,  she  fled  in 
confusion,  and  that  is  why  she  lives  and  dives  alone  to  this 
very  day.^  In  Guinea,  where  beast-fable  is  one  of  the  great 
staples  of  native  conversation,  the  following  story  is  told  as 
a  type  of  the  tales  which  in  this  way  account  for  peculiari- 
ties of  animals.  The  great  Engena-monkey  offered  his 
daughter  to  be  bride  of  the  champion  who  should  perform 
the  feat  of  drinking  a  whole  barrel  of  rum.  The  dignified 
Elephant,  the  graceful  Leopard,  the  surly  Boar,  tried  the 
first  mouthful  of  the  fire-water,  and  retreated.  Then  the 
tiny  Telinga-monkey  came,  who  had  cunningly  hidden  in 


•  Oldfield  in  'Tr.  Eth.  Soc'  vol.  iii.  p.  259. 

'  Steller,  '  Kamtschatka,'  p.  255. 

3  Wilson  in  '  Tr.  Eth.  Soc.'  vol.  iv.  p.  306. 


tny  hya5na 
rewolf ;  to 
r  grandam 
ly  regulate 
to  men  an 
he  worship 
f  mankind, 
first  home, 
des,  of  the 
gsy-brother 
ere  asleep.^ 
adventures 
ayed  tricks 
m's,  so  that 
th  himself.'* 
Polynesians 
L  them  inge- 
habits  and 
lof  the  Flat- 
his  grand- 
;  crooked 
down  to 
le  Speckled 
she  fled  in 
[lone  to  this 
»f  the  great 
•y  is  told  as 
peculiari- 
loffered  his 
Id  perform 
]e  dignified 
t,  tried  the 
Then  the 
hidden  in 


MYTHOLOGY. 


411 


the  long  grass  thousands  of  his  fellows  ;  he  took  his  first 
glass  and  went  away,  but  instead  of  his  coming  back,  an- 
other just  like  him  came  for  the  second,  and  so  on  till  the 
barrel  was  emptied  and  Telinga  walked  off  with  the  Monkey- 
king's  daughter.  But  in  the  narrow  path  the  Elephant  and 
Leopard  attacked  him  and  drove  him  off,  and  he  took  refuge 
in  the  highest  boughs  of  the  trees,  vowing  never  more  to 
live  on  the  ground  and  su^er  such  violence  and  injustice. 
This  is  why  to  this  day  the  little  telingas  are  only  found  in 
the  highest  tree-tops.^  Such  stories  have  been  collected  by 
scores  from  savage  tradition  in  their  original  state,  while  as 
yet  no  moral  lesson  has  entered  into  them.  Yet  the  easy 
and  natural  transition  from  the  story  into  the  parable  is 
made  among  savages,  perhaps  without  help  from  higher 
races.  In  the  Hottentot  Tales,  side  by  side  with  the  myths 
of  the  cunning  Jackal  tricking  the  Lion  out  of  the  best  of 
the  carcase,  and  getting  the  black  stripe  burnt  on  his  own 
back  by  carrying  off  the  Sun,  there  occurs  the  moral 
apologue  of  the  Lion  who  thought  himself  wiser  than  his 
Mother,  and  perished  by  the  Hunter's  spear,  for  wact  of 
heed  to  her  warning  against  the  deadly  creature  whose  head 
is  in  a  line  with  his  breast  and  shoulders.''  So  the  Zulus 
have  a  thorough  moral  apologue  in  the  story  of  the  hyrax, 
who  did  not  go  to  fetch  his  tail  on  the  day  when  tails  were 
given  out,  because  Le  did  not  like  to  be  out  in  the  rain ;  he 
only  asked  the  other  animals  to  bring  it  for  him,  and  so  he 
never  got  it.^  Among  the  North  American  legends  of 
Manabozho,  there  is  a  fable  quite  iEsopian  in  its  humour. 
Manabozho,  transformed  into  a  Wolf,  killed  a  fat  moose, 
and  being  very  hungry  sat  down  to  eat.  But  he  fell  into 
great  doubts  as  to  where  to  begin,  for,  said  he,  if  I  begin  at 
the  head,  people  will  laugh  and  say,  he  ate  him  backwards. 


'  J.  L.  Wilson,  'W.  Afr.'  p.  382. 

'  Bleek,  '  Reynard  in  S.  Afr.'  pp.  5,  47,  67  (these  are  not  among  the 
stories  whiuh  seem  recently  borrowed  from  Europeans).  See  '  Early  History 
of  Mankind,'  p.  10. 

3  Callaway,  '  Zulu  Tales,'  vol.  i.  p.  35.5-. 


,/ 


412 


MYTHOLOGY. 


pel 

t 

«>■. 

r,  ■'■■ 

•  ! 


/ 


but  if  I  begin  at  the  side  they  will  say,  he  ate  him  sideways. 
At  last  ho  made  up  his  mind,  and  was  just  putting  a  delicate 
piece  into  his  mouth,  when  a  tree  close  by  creaked.  Stop, 
stop !  said  he  to  the  tree,  I  cannot  eat  with  such  a  noise, 
and  in  spite  of  his  hunger  he  left  the  meat  and  climbed  up 
to  quiet  the  creaking,  but  was  caught  between  two  branches 
and  held  fast,  and  presently  he  saw  a  pack  of  wolves  coming. 
Go  that  way  1  Go  that  way !  he  cried  out,  whereupon  the 
wolves  said,  he  must  have  something  there,  or  he  would  not 
tell  us  to  go  another  way.  So  they  came  on,  and  found  the 
moose,  and  ate  it  to  the  bones  while  Manabozho  looked 
wistfully  on.  The  next  heavy  blast  of  wind  opened  the 
branches  and  let  him  out,  and  he  went  home  thinking  to 
himself  '  See  the  effect  of  meddling  with  frivolous  things 
when  I  had  certain  good  in  my  possession.'  ^ 

In  the  Old  World,  the  moral  Beast-fable  was  of  no  mean 
antiquity,  but  it  did  not  at  once  supplant  the  animal-myths 
pure  and  simple.  For  ages  the  European  mind  was  capable 
at  once  of  receiving  lessons  of  wisdom  from  the  iEsopian 
crows  and  foxes,  and  of  enjoying  artistic  but  by  no  means 
edifying  beast-stories  of  more  primitive  type.  In  fact  the 
Babrius  and  Phsedrus  collections  were  over  a  thousand  years 
old,  when  the  genuine  Beast-Epic  reached  its  fullest  growth 
in  the  incomparable  '  Keynard  the  Fox,'  traceable  in  Jakob 
Grimm's  view  to  an  original  Frankish  composition  of  the 
12th  century,  itself  containing  materials  of  far  earlier  date.^ 
Reynard  is  not  a  didactic  poem,  at  least  if  a  moral  hangs  on 
to  it  here  and  there  it  is  oftenest  a  Macchiavellian  one ; 
nor  is  it  essentially  a  satire,  sharply  as  it  lashes  men  in 
general  and  the  clergy  in  particular.  Its  creatures  are  in- 
carnate qualities,  the  Fox  of  cunning,  the  Bear  of  strength, 
the  Ass  of  dull  content,  the  Sheep  of  guilelessness.  The 
charm  of  the  narrative,  which  every  class  in  medisBval 
Europe  delighted  in,  but  which  we  have  allowed  to  drop 
out  of  all  but  scholars'  knowledge,  lies  in  great  measure  in 

*  Schoolcraft,  *  Algic  Res.'  vol.  i.  p.  160  ;  see  pp.  43,  61. 
'  Jakob  Grimm,  '  Reiuhart  Fuchs,'  latrod. 


MYTHOLOGY. 


413 


n  sideways, 
g  a  delicate 
ked.  Stop, 
ich  a  noise, 
climbed  up 
vo  branches 
ves  coming, 
ereupon  the 
e  would  not 
id  found  the 
3zho  looked 
opened  the 
thinking  to 
)lous  things 

of  no  mean 
limal-myths 
was  capable 
e  iEsopian 
J  no  means 
In  fact  the 
usand  years 
[lest  growth 
lo  in  Jakob 
ition  of  the 
xlier  date.'^ 
•al  hangs  on 
lellian  one; 
les  men  in 
res  are  in- 
if  strength, 
iness.     The 
mediajval 
d  to  drop 
loasure  in 

S,  61. 


the  cleverly  sustained  combination  of  the  beast's  nature  and 
the  man's.  How  great  the  influence  of  the  Reynard  Epic 
was  in  the  middle  ages,  may  be  judged  from  Reynard,  Bruin, 
Chanticleer,  being  still  names  familiar  to  people  who  have 
no  idea  of  their  having  been  originally  names  of  the  cha- 
racters in  the  great  beast-fable.  Even  more  remarkable 
are  its  traces  in  modern  French.  The  donkey  has  its  name 
of  baudet  from  Baudoin,  Baldwin  the  Ass.  Common  French 
dictionaries  do  not  even  contain  the  word  goupil  (vulpes), 
so  effectually  has  the  Latin  name  of  the  fox  been  driven  out 
of  use  by  his  Frankish  title  in  the  Beast-Epic,  Raginhard 
the  Counsellor,  Relnhart,  Reynard,  Renart,  renard.  The 
moralized  apologues  like  ^sop's  which  Grimm  con- 
temptuously calls  '  fables  thinned  down  to  mere  moral 
and  allegory,'  '  a  fourth  watering  of  the  old  grapes  into  an 
insipid  moral  infusion,'  are  low  in  aesthetic  quality  as  com- 
pared with  the  genuine  beast-myths.  Mythological  critics 
will  be  apt  to  judge  them  after  the  manner  of  the  child  who 
said  how  convenient  it  was  to  have  '  Moral '  printed  in 
iEsop's  Fables,  that  everybody  might  know  what  to  skip. 

The  want  of  power  of  abstraction  which  has  ever  had 
such  disastrous  effect  on  the  beliefs  of  mankind,  confound- 
ing myth  and  chronicle,  and  crushing  the  spirit  of  history 
under  the  rubbish  of  literalized  tradition,  comes  very  clearly 
into  view  in  the  study  of  parable.  The  state  of  mind  of 
the  deaf,  dumb,  and  blind  Laura  Bridgman,  so  instructive 
in  illustrating  the  mental  habits  of  uneducated  though  full- 
sensed  men,  displays  in  an  extreme  form  the  difficulty  such 
men  have  in  comprehending  the  unreality  of  any  story. 
She  could  not  be  made  to  see  that  arithmetical  problems 
were  anything  but  statc^icnts  of  concrete  fact,  and  when 
her  teacher  asked  her, '  If  you  can  buy  a  barrel  of  cider 
for  four  dollars,  how  much  can  you  buy  for  one  dollar  ? ' 
she  replied  quite  simply,  'I  cannot  give  much  for  cider, 
because  it  is  very  sour.'^  It  is  a  surprising  instance  of 
this  tendency  to  concretism,  that  among  people  so  civilized 

'  Account  of  Laura  Bridgman,  p.  120. 


414 


MYTHOLOGY. 


r,    ■•' 
I'     > 

•I 


as  the  BuddhiBts,  the  most  obviously  moral  beast-fables 
have  become  literal  incidents  of  sacred  history.  Gautama, 
during  his  550  jatakas  or  births,  took  the  form  of  a  frog,  a 
fish,  a  crow,  an  ape,  and  various  other  animals,  and  so  far 
were  the  legends  of  these  transformations  from  mere  myth 
to  his  followers,  that  there  have  been  preserved  as  relics  in 
Buddhist  temples  the  hair,  feathers,  and  bones  of  the 
creatures  whose  bodies  the  great  teacher  inhabited.  Now 
among  the  incidents  which  happened  to  Buddha  during 
his  series  of  animal  births,  he  appeared  as  an  actor  in  the 
familiar  fable  of  the  Fox  and  the  Stork,  and  it  was  he  who, 
when  he  was  a  SquiiTel,  set  an  example  of  parental  virtue 
by  trying  to  dry  up  the  ocean  with  his  tail,  to  save  his 
young  ones  whose  nest  had  drifted  out  to  sea,  till  his  per- 
severing courage  was  rewarded  by  a  miracle.^  To  our 
modern  minds,  a  moral  which  seems  the  very  purpose  of  a 
story  is  evidence  unfavourable  to  its  truth  as  fact.  But  if 
even  apologues  of  talking  birds  and  beasts  have  not  been 
safe  from  literal  belief,  it  is  clear  that  the  most  evident 
moral  can  have  been  but  slight  protection  to  parables  told 
of  possible  and  life-like  men.  It  was  not  a  needless  pre- 
caution to  state  explicitly  of  the  New  Testament  parables 
that  they  were  parables,  and  even  this  guard  has  not  availed 
entirely.  Mrs.  Jameson  relates  some  curious  expeiieuce  in 
the  following  passage  : — '  I  know  that  I  was  not  very 
young  when  I  entertained  no  more  doubt  of  the  substantial 
existence  of  Lazarus  and  Dives  than  of  John  the  Baptist 
and  Herod  ;  when  the  Good  Samaritan  was  as  real  a  per- 
sonage as  any  of  the  Apostles  ;  when  I  was  full  of  sincerest 
pity  for  those  poor  foolish  Virgins  who  had  forgotten  to 
trim  their  lamps,  and  thought  them — in  my  secret  soul — 
rather  hardly  treated.  This  impression  of  the  literal  actual 
truth  of  the  parables  I  have  since  met  with  in  many  childi'en, 
and  in  the  uneducated  but  devout  hearers  and  readers  of 

'  Bowring, '  Siam,'  vol.  i.  p.  818  ;  Hardy,  '  Manual  of  Bu(ihism,'p,  98.  See 
the  fable  of  the  '  Crow  and  Pitcher,'  in  Plin.  x.  60,  and  Bastian, '  Mensch,' 
vol.  i.  p.  76. 


beast-fablcB 
Gautama, 
of  a  frog,  a 
,  and  BO  far 
mere  myth 
as  relics  in 
nes  of   the 
)ited.    Now 
Idha  during 
actor  in  the 
was  he  who, 
•ental  virtue 
to  save  his 
till  his  per- 
Le.i    To   our 
purpose  of  a 
fact.    But  if 
ave  not  been 
nost  evident 
•arables  told 
eedless  pre- 
lent  parables 
not  availed 
Ixperience  in 
,s   not  very 
substantial 
the  Baptist 
real  a  per- 
of  sincerest 
'orgotten  to 
icret  soul — 
[teral  actual 
y  children, 
readers  of 

^m,'p.  98.    See 
[an, '  Mensch,' 


MYTHOLOOY. 


415 


the  Bible ;  and  I  remember  that  when  I  once  tried  to 
explain  to  a  good  old  woman  the  pioper  meaning  of  the 
word  parable,  and  that  the  story  of  the  Prodigal  Son  was 
not  a  fact,  she  was  scandalized — she  was  quite  sure  that 
Jesus  would  never  have  told  anything  to  his  disciples  that 
was  not  true.  Thus  she  settled  the  matter  in  her  own  mind, 
and  I  thought  it  best  to  leave  it  there  undisturbed.'  ^  Nor, 
it  may  be  added,  has  such  realization  been  confined  to 
the  minds  of  the  poor  and  ignorant.  St.  Lazarus,  patron 
saint  of  lepers  and  their  hospitals,  and  from  whom  the 
lazzarone  and  the  lazzaretto  take  their  name,  obviously 
derives  these  qualities  from  the  Lazarus  of  the  parable. 

The  proof  of  the  force  and  obstinacy  of  the  mythic  faculty, 
thus  given  by  the  relapse  of  parable  into  pseudo-history, 
may  conclude  this  dissertation  on  mythology.  In  its  course 
there  have  been  examined  the  processes  oi  animating  and 
personifying  .lature,  the  formation  of  legend  by  exaggera- 
tion and  perversion  of  fact,  the  stiffening  of  metaphor  by 
mistaken  realization  of  words,  the  conversion  of  speculative 
theories  and  still  less  substantial  fictions  into  pretended 
traditional  events,  the  passage  of  myth  into  miracle-legend, 
the  definition  by  name  and  place  given  to  any  floating 
imagination,  the  adaptation  of  mythic  incident  as  moral 
example,  and  the  incessant  crystallization  of  story  into 
history.  The  investigation  of  these  intricate  and  devious 
operations  has  brought  ever  more  and  more  broadly  into 
view  two  principles  of  mythologic  science.  The  first  is  that 
legend,  when  classified  on  a  sufficient  scale,  displays  a 
regularity  of  development  which  the  notion  of  motiveless 
fancy  quite  fails  to  account  for,  and  which  must  be  attri- 
buted to  laws  of  formation  whereby  every  story,  old  and 
new,  has  arisen  from  its  definite  origin  and  sufficient  cause. 
So  uniform  indeed  is  such  development,  that  it  becomes 
possible  to  treat  myth  as  an  organic  product  of  mankind  at 
large,  in  which  individual,  national,  and  even  racial  dis- 
tinctions stand  subordinate  to  universal  qualities  of  the 
'  Jameson,  '  Hiiitory  of  Our  Lord  in  Art,'  vol.  i.  p.  375. 


416 


MYTHOLOQY. 


fTs 


'ii 


human  mind.  The  second  principle  concerns  the  relation 
of  myth  to  history.  It  is  true  that  the  search  for  mutilated 
and  mystified  traditions  of  real  events,  which  formed  so 
main  a  part  of  old  mythological  researches,  seems  to  grow 
more  hopeless  the  farther  the  study  of  legend  extends. 
Even  the  fragments  of  real  chronicle  found  embedded  in 
the  mythic  structure  are  mostly  in  so  corrupt  a  state,  that, 
far  from  their  elucidating  history,  they  need  history  to 
elucidate  them.  Yet  unconsciously,  and  as  it  were  in  spite 
of  themselves,  the  shapers  and  transmitters  of  poetic  legend 
have  preserved  for  us  masses  of  sound  historical  evidence. 
They  moulded  into  mythic  livens  of  gods  and  heroes  their 
own  ancestral  heirlooms  of  thought  and  word,  they  displayed 
in  the  structure  of  their  legends  the  operations  of  their  own 
minds,  they  placed  on  record  the  arts  and  manners,  the 
philosophy  and  religion  of  their  own  times,  times  of  which 
formal  history  has  often  lost  the  very  memory.  Myth  is 
the  history  of  its  authors,  not  of  its  subjects ;  it  records  the 
lives,  not  of  superhuman  heroes,  but  of  poetic  nations. 


t 


t!,. 


t 

r, 
k 


1 


r  ! 


ho  relation 
r  mutilated 

formed  so 
ms  to  grow 
id  extends, 
nbedded  in 
,  state,  that, 

history  to 
'ere  in  spite 
actio  legend 
al  evidence, 
leroes  their 
3y  displayed 
)f  their  own 
lanners,  the 
les  of  which 
y.  Myth  is 
,  records  the 
lations. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

ANIMISM. 

Religious  idons  generally  appear  among  low  racen  of  Mankind — Negative 
Btntemenls  on  this  subject  frequently  misleading  and  mistaken  :  many 
casosunccrtain— Minimum  definitionof  Religion— Doctrine  of  Spiritual 
Boings,hcrotormcd  Animism— Animism  treated  as  belonging  to  Natural 
Religion— Animiam  dividtid  into  two  soctiona,  the  philosophy  of  Souls, 
and  of  other  Spirits — DnAfrjn^^  nf  s^)^llH,  i[a  provaloncajuid  definition 
among  the  lower  races— Definition  of  Appnritional  Soul  or  Ghost-Soul  — 
It  is  a  theoretical  conception  of  primitive  Philosophy,  designed  to 
account  for  phenomena  now  classed  under  Biology,  especially  Life  and 
Death,  Health  and  Disease,  Sleep  and  Dreams,  Trance  and  Visions — 
Relation  of  Soul  in  name  and  nature  to  Shadow,  Blood,  Breath — 
Divisionor  Plurality  of  Souls — Soul  cause  of  Life ;  its  restoration  to  body 
when  supposed  absent— Exit  of  Smil  in  Trances— Dreams  and  Visions : 
theory  of  exit  of  dreamer'."  ■  ^oer's  own  soul ;  theory  of  visits  received 
by  them  from  other  soul  lihost-Soul  seen  in  Apparitions— Wraiths 
and  Doubles— Soul  Iwi^  l\<rin  of  body ;  sufl'ors  mutilation  with  it — Voice 
of  Ghost— Soul  trciitvU  .n\il  defined  as  of  Material  Substance  ;  this 
appears  to  be  the  or'i  j;inal  doctrine— Transmission  of  Souls  to  service  in 
future  life  by  Fui,-  ral  Sacrifice  of  wives,  attendants,  &c.— Souls  of 
Animals — Their  craiiMmission  by  Funeral  Sacrifice — Souls  of  Plants- 
Souls  of  Objects — Their  transmission  by  Funeral  Sacrifice  -Relation 
of  doctrine  of  Object-Souls  to  Epicurean  theory  of  Ideas  Historical 
development  of  Doctrine  of  Souls,  from  the  Ethereal  Soul  >>f  primitive 
Biology  to  the  Immaterial  Soul  of  modern  Theology. 

Are  there,  or  have  there  been,  tribes  of  men  so  low  in 
culture  as  to  have  no  religious  conceptions  whatev^'r?  This 
is  practically  the  question  of  the  universality  of  religion, 
which  for  so  many  centuries  has  been  aflRrmed  and  denied, 
with  a  confidence  in  striking  contrast  to  the  imperfect 
evidence  on  which  both  affirmation  and  denial  have  been 
based.  T^^t.hnnpfrnphfira,  if  1nn1<;inpr  t.n  n,  t.hpory  of  develop- 
ment to_explainciyilizationj  and  regarding  its  successive 

VOL.  I.  E  e~~~ 


418 


ANIMISM. 


rs  t 


stages  as  arising  one  from  another,  would  receive  with  pe- 
culiar interest  accQunts  of  tribes  devoid  of  all  religion. 
Here,  they  would  naturally  say,  are  men  who  have  no  reli- 
gion because  their  forefathers  had  none,  men  who  represent 
a  prse-religious  condition  of  the  human  race,  out  of  which 
in  the  course  of  time  religious  conditions  have  arisen.  It 
does  not,  however,  seem  advisable  to  start  from  this  ground 
in  an  investigation  of  religious  development.  Though  the 
theoretical  niche  is  ready  and  convenient,  the  actual  statue 
to  fill  it  is  not  forthcoming.  The  case  is  in  some  degree 
similar  to  that  of  the  tribes  asserted  to  exist  without  language 
or  without  the  use  of  fire ;  nothing  in  the  nature  of  things 
seems  to  forbid  the  possibility  of  such  existence,  but  as  a 
matter  of  fact  the  tribes  are  not  found.  Thus  the  assertion 
that  rude  non-religious  tribes  have  been  known  in  actual 
existence,  though  in  theory  possible,  and  perhaps  in  fact 
true,  does  not  at  present  rest  on  that  sufficient  proof 
which,  for  an  exceptional  state  of  things,  we  are  entitled 
to  demand. 

It  is  not  unusual  for  the  very  writer  who  declares  in 
general  terms  the  absence  of  religious  phenomena  among 
some  savage  people,  himself  to  give  evidence  that  shows 
his  expressions  to  be  misleading.  Thus  Dr.  Lang  not  only 
declares  that  the  aborigines  of  Australia  have  no  idea  of  a 
supreme  divinity,  creator,  and  judge,  no  object  of  worship, 
no  idol,  temple,  or  sacrifice,  but  that  *  in  short,  they  have 
nothing  whatever  of  the  character  of  religion,  or  of  reli- 
gious observance,  to  distinguish  them  from  the  beasts  that 
perish.'  More  than  one  writer  has  since  made  use  of  this 
telling  statement,  but  without  referring  to  certain  details 
which  occur  in  the  very  same  book.  From  these  it  appears 
that  a  disease  like  small-pox,  which  sometimes  attacks  the 
natives,  is  ascribed  by  them  '  to  the  influence  of  Budyah, 
an  evil  spirit  who  delights  in  mischief ; '  that  when  the 
natives  rob  a  wild  bees'  hive,  they  generally  leave  a  little  of 
the  honey  for  Buddai ;  tliat  at  certain  biennial  gatherings 
of  the  Queensland  tribes,  young  girls  are  slain  in  sacrifice 


ANIMISM. 


419 


e  with  pe- 
l  religion, 
ve  no  reli- 
)  represent 
t  of  which 
arisen.  It 
his  ground 
though  the 
tual  statue 
)me  degree 
it  language 
3  of  things 
e,  but  as  a 
e  assertion 
n  in  actual 
ips  in  fact 
dent  proof 
ire  entitled 


eclares  in 


i 

jna  among 
lat  shows 
not  only- 
idea  of  a 
worship, 
ihey  have 
or  of  reli- 
teasts  that 
se  of  this 
■tin  details 
it  appears 
itacks  the 
Budyah, 
when  the 
a  little  of 
gatherings 
sacrifice 


to  propitiate  some  evil  divinity ;  and  that,  lastly,  according 
to  the  evidence  of  the  Rev.  W.  Ridley, '  whenever  he  has 
conversed  with  the  aborigines,  he  found  them  to  have  de- 
finite traditions  concerning  supernatural  beings — Baiame, 
whose  voice  they  hear  in  thunder,  and  who  made  all  things, 
TurramuUun  the  chief  of  demons,  who  is  the  author  of 
disease,  mischief,  and  wisdom,  and  appears  in  the  form  of  a 
serpent  at  their  great  assemblies,  &c.'  ^  By  the  concurring 
testimony  of  a  crowd  of  observers,  it  is  known  that  the 
natives  of  Australia  were  at  their  discovery,  and  have  since 
remained,  a  race  with  minds  saturated  with  the  most  vivid 
belief  in  souls,  demons,  and  deities.  In  Africa,  Mr.  Moifat's 
declaration  as  to  the  Bechuanas  is  scarcely  less  surprising 
— that '  man's  immortality  was  never  heard  of  among  that 
people,'  he  having  remarked  in  the  sentence  next  before, 
that  the  word  for  the  shades  or  manes  of  the  dead  is 
'liriti.'^  In  South  America,  again,  Don  Felix  de  Azara 
comments  on  the  positive  falsity  of  the  ecclesiastics'  asser- 
tion that  the  native  tribes  have  a  religion.  He  simply 
declares  that  they  have  none  ;  nevertheless  in  the  course  of 
his  work  he  mentions  such  facts  as  that  the  Payaguas  bury 
arms  and  clothing  with  their  dead  and  have  some  notions 
of  a  future  life,  and  that  the  Guanas  believe  in  a  Being  who 
rewards  good  air'l  punishes  evil.  In  fact,  this  author's 
reckless  denial  of  religion  and  law  to  the  lower  races  of  this 
region  justifies  D'Orbigny's  sharp  criticism,  that  '  this  is 
indeed  what  he  says  of  all  the  natioiis  he  describes,  while 
actually  proving  the  contrary  of  his  thesis  by  the  very  facts 
he  alleges  in  its  support.'  ^ 

Such  cases  show  how  deceptive  are  judgments  to  which 
breadth  and  generality  are  given  by  the  use  of  wide  words  in 
narrow  senses.  Lang,  Moffat,  and  Azara  are  authors  to  whom 
ethnography  owes  much  valuable  knowledge  of  the  tribes 

»  J.  D.  Lang,  'QueensLind,'  pp.  340,  374,  380,  388,  444  (Buddai  appears, 
p.  379,  as  causing  a  deluge  ;  he  is  probably  identical  with  Budyah). 

'  Moffat,  '  South  Africa,'  p.  261. 

'  Azara,  'Voy.  dans  I'AKiorique  Muriuiouiiie,' vol.  ii.  pp.  3,  14,  25,  51,  60, 
91,  119,  &c.  ;  D'Orbigny,  'L 'Homme  Am^ricain,'  vol.  ii.  p.  318. 

E  e  a 


420 


ANIMISM. 


cs 


+-■* 


I 

: ! 


they  visited,  but  they  seem  hardly  to  have  recognized  any- 
thing short  of  the  organized  and  established  theology  of  the 
higher  races  as  being  religion  at  all.  They  attribute  irre- 
ligion  to  tribes  whose  doctrines  are  unlike  theirs,  in  much 
the  same  manner  as  theologians  have  so  often  attributed 
atheism  to  those  whose  deities  differed  from  their  own,  from 
the  time  when  the  ancient  invading  Aryans  described  the 
aboriginal  tribes  of  India  as  adeva,  i.  e.  '  godless,'  and 
the  Greeks  fixed  the  corresponding  term  aOeoi  on  the  early 
Christians  as  unbelievers  in  the  classic  gods,  to  the  com- 
paratively modern  ages  when  disbelievers  in  witchcraft  and 
apostol'cal  succession  were  denounced  as  atheists;  and  down 
to  our  own  day,  when  controversialists  are  apt  to  infer,  as  in 
past  centuries,  that  naturalists  who  support  a  theory  of 
development  of  species  therefore  necessarily  hold  atheistic 
opinions.^  These  are  in  fact  but  examples  of  a  general 
perversion  of  judgment  in  theological  matters,  among  the 
results  of  which  is  a  popular  misconception  of  the  religions 
of  the  lower  races,  simply  amazing  to  students  who  have 
reached  a  higher  point  of  view.  Some  missionaries,  no 
doubt,  thoroughly  understand  the  minds  of  the  savages 
they  have  to  deal  with,  and  indeed  it  is  from  men  like 
Cranz,  Dobrizhoffer,  Charlevoix,  Ellis,  Hnrdy,  Callaway, 
J.  L.  Wilson,  T.  Williams,  that  we  have  obtained  our  best 
knowledge  of  the  lower  phases  of  religious  belief.  But  for 
the  most  part  the  'religious  world'  is  so  occupied  in 
hating  and  despising  the  beliefs  of  the  heathen  whose  vast 
regions  of  the  globe  are  painted  black  on  the  missionary 
maps,  that  they  have  little  time  or  capacity  left  to  under- 
stand them.  It  cannot  be  so  with  those  who  fairly  seek  to 
comprehend  the  nature  and  meaning  of  the  lower  phases  of 
religion.  These,  while  fully  alive  to  the  absurdities  be- 
lieved and  the  horrors  perpetrated  in  its  name,  will  yet 


'  Muir,  'Sanskrit  Texts,'  part  ii.  p.  435  ;  Euseb.  'Hist.  Eccl.'  iv.  15  ; 
Bingham,  book  i.  ch.  ii. ;  Vanini,  'De  Admirandis  Naturae  Arcanis,' dial. 37  ; 
Lecky,  'Hist,  of  Rationalism,'  vol.  i.  p.  126  ;  Encyclop.  Brit.  (5th  ed.)s.  v. 
'  Superstition.' 


icognized  any- 
heology  of  the 
attribute  irre- 
heirs,  in  much 
ten  attributed 
leir  own,  from 
described  the 
godless/  and 

on  the  eai'ly 
3,  to  the  com- 
v^itchcraft  and 
its ;  and  down 
to  infer,  as  in 
)  a  theory  of 
xold  atheistic 
of  a  general 
"s,  among  the 
'  the  religions 
its  who  have 
sionaries,  no 

the  savages 
)m  men  like 
y,  Callaway, 
ned  our  best 
ief.     But  for 

occupied  in 
1  whose  vast 
e  missionary 
Ft  to  under- 
lirly  seek  to 

er  phases  of 
lurdities  be- 
le,  will  yet 

EccL'  iv.  15  ; 
•cani8,'dial.37; 
t.  (5th  od.)  8.  V. 


ANIMISM. 


421 


r'^gard  with  kindly  interest  all  record  of  men's  earnest 
seeking  after  truth  with  such  light  as  they  could  find.  Such 
students  will  look  for  meaning,  however  crude  and  childish, 
at  the  root  of  doctrines  often  most  dark  to  the  believers 
who  accept  them  most  zealously  ;  they  will  search  for  the 
reasonable  thought  which  once  gave  life  to  observances  now 
become  in  seeming  or  reality  the  most  abject  and  super- 
stitious folly.  The  reward  of  these  enquirers  will  be  a 
more  rational  comprehension  of  the  faiths  in  whose  midst 
they  dwell,  for  no  more  can  he  who  understands  but  one 
religion  understand  even  that  religion,  than  the  man  who 
knows  but  one  language  can  understand  that  language.    No 


religion  of  mankind  lies  in  utter  isolation  from  the  rest, 
and  the  thoughts  and  principles  of  modem  Christianity 
are  attached  to  intellectual  clues  which  run  back  through  ^ 
far  pr^'       ■  istian  ages  to  the  very  origin  of  human  civili- 
I  zatioi   jy  -i  aps  even  of  human  existence. 

While  observers  who  have  had  fair  opportunities  of  study- 
ing the  religions  of  savages  have  thus  sometimes  done  scant 
justice  to  the  facts  before  their  eyes,  the  hasty  denials  of 
others  who  have  judged  without  even  facts  can  carry  no 
great  weight.  A  16th-century  traveller  gave  an  account  of 
the  natives  of  Florida  which  is  typical  of  such :  '  Touching 
the  religion  of  this  people,  which  wee  have  found,  for  want 
of  their  language  wee  could  not  understand  neither  by  signs 

nor  gesture  that  they  had  any  religion  or  lawe  at  all 

We  suppose  that  they  have  no  religion  at  all,  and  that  they 
live  at  their  own  libertie.'^  Better  knowledge  of  these 
Floridans  nevertheless  showed  that  they  had  a  religion,  and 
better  knowledge  has  reversed  many  another  hasty  asser- 
tion to  the  same  effect ;  as  when  writers  used  to  declare 
that  the  natives  of  Madagascar  had  no  idea  of  a  future  state, 
and  no  word  for  soul  or  spirit  ;^  or  when  Dampier  enquired 
after  the  religion  of  the  natives  of  Timor,  and  was  told 

'  J.  de  Verrazano  in  Hakluyt,  vol.  iii.  p.  300. 

"  See  Ellis,  '  Madagascar,'  vol.  i.  p.  429  ;  Flacourt,  '  Hist,  de  Madagascar,' 
n.  au. 


// 


//^ 


pur. 


*^feii 


■ 

:  i 


422 


ANIMISM. 


that  they  ?iad  none  ;^  or  when  Sir  Thomas  Roe  landed  in 
Saldanha  Bay  on  his  way  to  the  court  of  the  Great  Mogul, 
and  remarked  of  th«  Hottentots  that  'they  have  left  off 
their  custom  of  stea)  ng,  but  know  no  God  or  religion.'* 
Among  the  numerous  accounts  collected  by  Sir  John  Lub- 
bock as  evidence  bearing  on  the  absence  or  low  devtiop- 
ment  of  religion  among  low  races,^  some  may  be  selected 
as  lyiBj  open  to  criticism  from  this  point  of  view.  Thus 
the  statement  that  the  Samoan  Islanders  had  no  religion 
cannot  stand,  in  face  of  the  elaborate  description  by  the 
Rev.  G.  Turner  of  the  Samoan  religion  itself;  and  the 
assertion  that  the  Tupinambas  of  Brazil  had  no  religion 
is  one  not  to  be  received  on  merely  negative  evidence,  for 
the  religious  doctrines  and  practices  of  the  Tupi  race  have 
been  recorded  by  Lery,  De  Laet,  and  other  writers.  Even 
with  much  time  and  care  and  knowledge  of  language, 
it  is  not  always  easy  to  elicit  from  savages  the  details  of 
their  theology.  They  try  to  hide  from  the  prying  and  con- 
temptuous foreigner  their  worship  of  gods  who  seem  tO 
shrink,  like  their  worshippers,  before  the  white  man  and  his 
mightier  Deity.  Mr.  Sproats  experience  in  Vancouver's 
Island  is  an  apt  example  of  this  state  of  things.  He  says : 
*  I  was  two  years  among  the  Ahts,  with  my  mind  constantly 
directed  towards  the  subject  of  their  religious  beliefs,  before 
I  could  discover  that  they  possessed  any  iaeas  as  to  an 
overruling  power  or  a  future  state  of  existence.  The  traders 
on  the  coast,  and  other  persons  well  acquainted  with  the 
people,  told  me  that  they  had  no  such  ideas,  and  this 
opinion  was  confirmed  by  conversation  with  many  of  the 
less  intelligent  savages  ;  but  at  last  I  succeeded  in  getting 
a  satisfactory  clue.'  *  It  then  appeared  that  the  Ahts  had 
all  the  time  been  hiding  a  whole  oharactei'istic  system  of 
religious  doctrines  as  to  souls  and  their  migrations,  the 

'  Dampier,  'Voyages,'  vol.  ii.  part  ii.  p.  76. 
'  Roe  in  Pinkerton,  vol  viii.  p.  2. 

'  Lubbock,  '  Prehistoric  Times,'  p.  664  :  see  also  'Origin  of  Civilization,' 
p.  138. 

*  Sproat,  '  Scenes  and  Studies  of  Savage  Life,'  p.  205. 


ANIMISM. 


423 


1.06  landed  in 
Great  Mogul, 
have  left  off 
or  religion.''' 
ir  John  Lub- 
low  devtiop- 
y  be  selected 
view.  Thus 
1  no  religion 
ption  by  the 
If;    and  the 

no  religion 
evidence,  for 
pi  race  have 
iters.     Even 
of  language, 
le  details  of 
ing  and  con- 
ho  seem  to 
nan  and  his 
Vancouver's 
.     He  says : 
1  constantly 
liefs,  before 
IS  as  to  an 
The  traders 
3d  with  the 
3,  and  this 
lany  of  the 

in  getting 
eAhts  had 

system  of 
itions,  the 


Civilization,' 


spirits  who  do  good  and  ill  to  men,  and  the  great  gods  above 
all.  Thus,  even  where  no  positive  proof  of  religious  ideas 
among  any  particular  tribe  has  reached  us,  we  shouid  dis- 
trust its  denial  by  observers  whose  acquaintance  with  the 
tribe  in  question  has  not  been  intimate  as  well  as  kindly. 
It  is  said  of  the  Andaman  Islanders  that  they  have  not  the 
rudest  elements  of  a  religious  faith;  yet  it  appears  that 
the  natives  did  not  even  display  to  the  foreigners  the  rude 
music  which  they  actually  possessed,  so  that  they  could 
scarcely  have  been  expected  to  be  communicative  as  to 
their  theology,  if  they  had  any.^  In  our  time  the  most 
striking  negation  of  the  religion  of  savage  tribes  is  that 
published  by  Sir  Samuel  Baker,  in  a  paper  read  in  1866 
before  the  Ethnological  Society  of  London,  as  follows: 
'The  most  northern  tribes  of  the  White  Nile  are  the 
Dinkas,  Shillooks,  Nuehr,  Kytch,  Bohr,  Aliab,  and  Shir. 
A  general  description  will  suffice  for  the  whole,  excepting  > 
the  Kytch.  Without  any  exception,  they  are  without  a 
belief  in  a  Supreme  Being,  neither  have  they  any  form  of 
worship  or  idolatry ;  nor  is  the  darkness  of  their  minds 
enlightened  by  even  a  ray  of  super&tition.'  Had  this 
distinguished  explorer  spoken  only  of  the  Latukas,  or  of 
other  tribes  hardly  known  to  ethnographers  except  through 
his  own  intercourse  with  them,  his  denial  of  any  religious 
consciousness  to  them  would  have  been  at  least  entitled  to 
stand  as  the  best  procurable  account,  until  more  intimate 
communication  should  prove  or  disprove  it.  But  in  speak- 
ing  thus  of  comparatively  well  known  tribes  such  as  the 
Dinkas,  Shilluks,  and  Nuehr,  Sir  S.  Baker  ignores  the 
existence  of  published  evidence,  such  as  describes  the 
sacrifices  of  the  Dinkas,  their  belief  in  good  and  evil  spirits 
(adjok  and  djyok),  their  good  deity  and  heaven-dwelling 
creator,  Dendid,  as  likewise  Ndar  the  deity  of  the  Nuehr, 
and  the  Shilluks'  creator,  who  is  described  as  visiting,  like 
other  spirits,  a  sacred  wood  or  tree.     Kaufmann,   Brun- 

'  Mouat,  'Andaman  Islanders,'  pp.  2,  2";9,  303.  Since  the  above  was 
written,  the  remarkable  Andaman  religion  has  been  described  by  Mr.  E. 
H.  Man,  in  '  Journ.  Anthrop.  Inst.'  voL  xii.  (1883)  p.  156.  [Note  to  3rd.  ed.J 


^^• 

a-^ 


^ 


m 


424 


ANM      M. 


fe'WJl 

Ik   .■"'•■ 
«     !« 


p^ 


/ 


/ 


,/ 


Rollet,  LejeaUj  and  other  observers,  had  thus  placed  on 
record  details  of  the  religion  of  these  White  Nile  tribes, 
years  before  Sir  S.  Baker's  rash  denial  that  they  had  any 

I  religion  at  all.^ 

!  The  first  requisite  in  a  systematic  study  of  the  religions 
of  the  lower  races,  is  to  lay  down  a  rudimentary  definition 
of  religion.  By  requiring  in  this  definition  the  belief  in  a 
supreme  deity  or  of  judgment  after  death,  the  adoration  of 
idols  or  the  practice  of  sacrifice,  or  other  partially-difiiised 
doctrines  or  rites,  no  doubt  many  tribes  may  be  excluded 
[,  from  the  category  ot  religious.  But  such  narrow  definition 
has  the  fault  of  identifying  religion  rather  with  particular 
developments  than  with  the  deeper  motive  which  underlies 
them.  It  seems  best  to  fall  back  at  once  on  this  essential 
Bovrco,  and  simply  to  claim,  as  a  minimum  definition  of 
Reli£,ion,  the  belief  in  Spiritual  Beings.  If  this  standard 
be  applied  to  the  descriptions  of  low  races  as  to  religion, 
the  following  results  will  appear.  It  cannot  be  positively 
asserted  that  every  existing  tribe  recognizes  the  belief  in 
spiritual  beings,  for  the  native  condition  of  a  considerable 
number  is  obscure  in  this  respect,  and  from  the  rapid  change 
or  extinction  they  are  undergoing,  may  ever  remain  so.  It 
would  be  yet  more  unwarranted  to  set  down  every  tribe 
mentioned  in  history,  or  known  to  us  by  the  discovery  of 
antiquarian  relics,  as  necessarily  having  possessed  the 
defined  minimum  of  religion.  Greater  still  would  be  the 
unwisdom  of  declaring  such  a  rudimentary  belief  natural  or 
instinctive  in  all  human  tribes  of  all  times  ;  for  no  evidence 


'  Baker,  '  Races  of  the  Nile  Basin,'  in  Tr.  Eth.  Soc.  vol.  v.  p.  231 ;  'The 
Albert  Nyanza,'  vol.  i.  p.  246.  See  Kaufmann,  'Schilderungen  aus  Central- 
afrika,'  p.  123  ;  Brun-Rollet,  '  Le  Nil  Blanc  et  le  Soudan,'  pp.  100,  222,  also 
pp.  164,  200,  234  ;  Q.  Lejean  in  '  Rev.  des  Deux  M.'  April  1,  1862,  p.  760 ; 
Waitz,  'Anthropologie,'  vol.  ii.  pp.  72-5 ;  Bastian,  '  Mcnsch,'  vol.  iii.  p.  208. 
Other  recorded  cases  of  denial  of  religion  of  savage  tribes  on  narrow  definition 
or  inadequate  evidence  may  be  found  in  Meiners,  '  Gesch.  der  Rel.'  vol.  i. 
p''  11-15  (Australians  and  Californians)  ;  Waitz,  '.Anthropologie,'  vol.  i. 
p.  323  (Aru  Islanders,  &c.)  ;  Farrar  in  '  Anthrop.  Rev.'  Aug.  1804,  p.  ccxvii. 
(Kafirs,  &c.) ;  Martius,  'Ethnog.  Amer.'  vol.  i.  p.  583  (.Manaos)  ;  J.  G. 
Palfrey,  '  Hist,  of  New  England,'  vol.  i.  p.  46  (New  England  tribes). 


ANIMISM. 


425 


IS  placed  on 

Nile  tribes, 

be}'  had  any 

tbe  religions 

ry  definition 

e  belief  in  a 

adoration  of 

ally-difiused 

be  excluded 

)w  definition 

ih  particular 

Lch  underlies 

ibis  essential 

definition  of 

bis  standard 

to  religion, 

)e  positively 

;he  belief  in 

considerable 

•apid  change 

nain  so.     It 

every  tribe 

[liscovery  of 

•ssessed  the 

ould  be  the 

natural  or 

QO  evidence 


p.  231;  'The 
n  aus  Central- 

100,  222,  also 

1862,  p.  760 ; 
vol.  iii.  p.  208. 
row  definition 
er  Rel.'  vol.  i. 
ologio,'  vol.  i. 

b64,  p.  ccxvii. 

naos)  ;  J.  O. 
tribes). 


^t— y 


justifies  the  opinion  that  man,  kiiown  to  be  capable  of  so 
vast  an  intellectual  development,  cannot  have  emerged  from 
a  non-religious  condition,  previous  to  uhat  religious  condi- 
tion in  which  he  happens  at  present  to  come  with  sufficient 
clearness  within  our  range  of  knowledge.     It  is  desirable, 
however,  to  take  our  basis  of  enquiry  in  observation  rather 
than  from  speculation.    Here,  so  fj,r  as  I  can  judge  from  the 
immense  mass  of  accessible  evidence,  we  have  to  admit  that    /    J 
the  belief  in  spiritual  beings  anpears  among  all  low  races 
with  whom  we  have  a|ttained  to  thoroughly  intimate  ac- 
quaintance  ;  whereas  the  assertion  of  absence  of  such  belief 
must  apply  either  to  ancient  tribes,  or  to  more  or  less  im- 
perfectly described  modern  ones.     The  exact  bearing  of  this 
state  of  things  on  the  problem  of  the  origin  of  religion  may 
be  thus  briefly  stated.    Wero  it  distinctly  proved  that  non- 
religious  savages  exist  or  have  existed,  these  might  be  at 
least  plausibly  claimed  as  representatives  of  the  condition 
of  Man  before  he  arrived  at  the  religious  stage  of  culture 
Ii'  is  not  desirable,  however,  that  this  argument  should  be 
put  forward,  for  the  asserted  existence  of  the  non-religious 
tribes  in  question  rests,  as  we  have  seen,  on  evidence  often 
mistaken  and   never  conclusive.     The  argument  for  the 
natural  evolution  of  religious  ideas  among  mankind  is  not 
invalidated  by  the  rejection  of  an  ally  too  weak  at  present 
to  give  effectual  help.     Non-religious  tribes  may  not  exist 
in  our  day,  but  the  fact  bears  no  more  decisivelj'  on  the 
development  of  religion,  than  the  impossibility  of  finding  a 
modern  English  village  without  scissors  or  books  or  lucifer- 
matches  bears  on  the  fact  that  thev*^  -v.  is  a  time  when  no 
such  things  existed  in  the  land. 

I  purpose  here,  under  the  name  of  Animism,  to  investigate 
the  deep-lying  doctrine  of  Spiritual  Beings,  which  embodies 
the  very  essence  of  iSpiritualistic  as  opposed  to  Materialistic 
philosophy.  Animism  is  not  a  new  technical  term,  tiough 
now  seldom  used.^    From  its  special  relation  to  tbe  docfci'ne 

•  The  term  has  been  especially  used  to  deno.o  the  doctrine  of  Stahl, 
the  promulgator  also  of  the  phlogiston-theory.    The  Animism  of  Stahl  is  a 


\ 


426 


ANIMISM. 


fi 


i 


I 


■mi 


C^ 


I 


'-■Hi 


r-! 

i>. 

!••      '.' 

•       1 

K      ■» 

11 

if 

1 

1 

: ! 

[ig^^ 

1         t^v 

of  the  soul,  it  will  be  seen  to  have  a  peculiar  appropriate- 
ness to  the  view  here  taken  of  the  mode  in  which  theological 
ideas  have  been  developed  among  mankind.  The  word 
Spiritualism,  though  it  may  be,  and  sometimes  is,  used  in  a 
general  sense,  has  this  obvious  defect  to  us,  that  it  has  be- 
come the  designation  of  a  particular  modern  sect,  who  indeed 
hold  extreme  spiritualistic  views,  but  cannot  be  taken  as 
typical  representatives  of  these  views  in  the  world  at  large. 
The  sense  of  Spiritualism  in  its  wider  acceptation,  the 
general  bel'.ef  in  spiritual  beings,  is  here  given  to  Animism. 
Animisra  characterizes  tribes  very  low  in  the  scale  of 
huu'anity,  and  thence  ascends,  deeply  modified  in  its  trans- 
mission, but  from  first  to  last  preserving  an  unbroken  con- 
tinuity, into  the  midst  of  high  modern  culture.  Doctrines 
adverse  to  it,  so  largely  held  by  individuals  or  schools,  are 
usually  due  not  to  early  lowness  of  civilization,  but  to  later 
changes  in  the  intellectual  course,  to  divergence  from,  or 
rejection  of,  ancestral  faiths ;  and  such  newer  developments 
do  not  affect  the  present  enquirvjas  to  the  fundamental 
religious  condition  of  mankind.  L Animism  is,  in  factj  the 
groundwork  of  the  Philosophy  of  Religion,  from  that  of 
savages  up  to  that  of  civilized  men.  And  although  it  may 
at  first  sight  seem  to  affb"  I  but  a  bare  and  meagre  defini- 
tion of  a  minimum  of  religion,  it  will  be  found  practically 
sufficient ;  for  where  the  root  is,  the  branches  will  generally 
be  produced.  It  is  habitually  found  that  the  theory  of 
I  Animism  divides  into  two  great  dogmas,  forming  parts  of 
I  one  consistent  doctrine ;  fiist,  concerning  souls  of  individual 
I  creatures,  capable  of  continued  existence  after  the  death  or 
destruction  of  the  body ;  second,  concerning  other  spirits, 
upward  to  the  rank  of  powerful  deities,  f  Spiritual  beings 
are  held  to  affect  or  control  the  events  of  tn^material  world/j 
id  man^B  life  here  and  hereafter ;  and  it  being  considered 

revival  and  development  in  modern  scientific  shape  of  the  classic  theory 
identifying  vital  principle  and  soul.  Sec  his  '  Theoria  Mcdica  Vera,'  Halle, 
1737  ;  and  the  critical  dissertation  on  his  views,  Lemoine,  ' Le  Yitalisme  et 
I'Animisme  de  Stahl,'  Paris,  1864. 


ppropriate- 
theological 
The  word 
is,  used  in  a 
t  it  has  be- 
who  indeed 
be  taken  as 
rid  at  large. 
)tation,  the 
o  Animism, 
he  scale  of 
n  its  trans- 
jroken  con- 
Doctrines 
schools,  are 
but  to  later 
ce  from,  or 
velopments 
mdamental 
in  fact,  the 
)m  that  of 
igh  it  may 
gre  defini- 
jractically 
generally 
theory  of 
[g  parts  of 
individual 
le  death  or 
ler  spirits, 
ual  beings 
rial  world/j 
considered 


lassie  theory 
Vera,'  Halle, 
Vitalisme  et 


(^ 


ANIMISM. 


u- 


42t 

that  they  hold  intercourse  with  men,  and  receive  pleasure  or 
displeasure  from  human  actions,  the  belief  in  their  existence 
leads  naturally,  and  it  might  almost  be  said  inevitably,  sooner 
or  later  to  active  reverence  and  propitiation.  JThua  ^imism. 
injts  full  development,  includes  the  belief  in  souls  and  in  a 
future  state,  in  controlling  deities  and  subordinate  spirits, 
these  doctrines  practically  resulting  in  some  kind  of  active 
Y^nraViip.—  HfiA  great  element  of  religion,  that  moral  element 
which  among  the  higher  nations  forms  its  most  vital  part,  iff 
indeed  little  represented  in  the  religion  of  the  lower  racee. '-~ 
It  is  not  that  these  races  have  no  moral  sense  or  no*^ 
moral  standard,  for  both  are  strongly  marked  among  them,  *— 
if  not  in  formal  precept,  at  least  in  that  traditional  con- 
sensus of  society  which  we  call  public  opinion,  according  to 
which  certain  actions  are  held  to  be  good  or  bad,  right  or 
wrong.  Jt  is  that  the  conjunction  of  ethics  atid  Animistic 
philosophy,  so  intimate  and  powerful  in  the  higher  culture, 
seems  scarcely  yet  to  have  begun  in  the  lower.  I  propose 
here  hai-dly  to  touch  upon  the  purely  moral  aspects  of  reli- 
gion, but  rather  tp_study  the  animism  of  the  world  so  far 
as  it  constitutes;  »8  unquestionably  it  does  constitute,  an 
ancient  and  world-wide  philosophy,  of  which  belief  is  _the 
theory  and  worship  is  the  practioa  Endeavouring  to  shape 
the  materials  for  an  enquiry  hitherto  strangely  undervalued 
and  neglected,  it  will  now  be  my  task  to  bring  as  clearly  as 
may  be  into  view  the  fundamental  animism  of  the  lower 
races,  and  in  some  slight  and  broken  outline  to  trace  its 
course  into  higher  regions  of  civilization.  Here  let  me 
state  once  for  all  two  principal  conditions  under  which  the 
present  research  is  carried  on.  First,  as  to  the  religious  _ 
doctrines  and  practices  examined,  these  are  treated  as 
belonging  to  theological  systems  devised  by  human  reason, 
without  supernatural  aid  or  revelation  ;  in  other  words,  as 
being  developments  of  Natural  Religion.  Secondj  as  to 
the  connexion  laetween  similar  ideas  and  rites  in  the  reli-_^ 
gions  of  the  savage  and  the  civilized  world.  While  dwell- 
ing at  some  length  on  doctrines  and  ceremonies  of  the  lower 


»   1 

N     '« 

I  » 


k 


t 


428 


AITIMISM. 


races,  and  Bometimes  particularizing  for  special  reasons  the 
related  doctrines  and  ceremonies  of  the  higher  nations,  it 
has  not  seemed  my  proper  task  to  work  out  in  detail  the 
problems  thus  suggested  among  the  philosophies  and  creeds 
of  Christendom.  Such  applications,  extending  farthest 
from  the  direct  scope  of  a  work  on  primitive  culture,  are 
briefly  stated  in  general  terms,  or  touched  in  slight  allusion, 
or  taken  for  granted  without  remark.  Educated  readers 
possess  the  information  required  to  work  out  their  general 
bearing  on  theology,  while  more  technical  discussion  is  left 
to  philosophers  and  theologians  specially  occupied  with 
such  arguments. 

The  first  branch  of  the  subject  to  be  considered  is  the 
doctrine  of  human  and  other  Soulg,  an  examination  of 
which  will  occupy  the  rest  of  the  present  chapter.     What 


the  doctrine  of  the  soul  is  among  the  lower  races,  may  be 
explained  in  stating  the  animistic  theory  of  its  development. 
It  seems  as  though  thinking  men,  as  yet  at  a  low  level  of 
culture,  were  deeply  impressed  by  two  groups  of  biological 
^  problems.  In  the  first  place,  what  is  it  that  makes  the 
difierence  between  a  living  body  and  a  dead  one ;  what 
causes  waking,  sleep,  trance,  disease,  death?  In  the 
second  place,  what  are  those  human  shapes  which  appear  in 
dreams  and  visions  ?  Looking  at  these  two  groups  of  phe- 
nomena, the  ancient  savage  philosophers  probably  made 
y  their  first  step  by  the  obvious  inference  that  every  man  has 

/  /  two  things  belonging  to  him,  namely,  a  life  and  a  phantom. 
These  two  are  evidently  in  close  connexion  with  tne  body, 
the  life  as  enabling  it  to  feel  and  think  and  act,  the  phantom 
as  being  its  image  or  second  self ;  both,  also,  are  perceived 
1  to  be  things  separable  from  the  body,  the  life  as  able  to  go 
\away  and  leave  it  insensible  or  dead,  the  phantom  as  appear- 
ing to  people  at  a  distance  from  it.  The  second  step  would 
seem  also  easy  for  savages  to  make,  seeing  how  extremely 
difficult  civilized  men  have  found  it  to  unmake.  It  is  merely 
to  combine  the  life  and  the  phantom.  As  both  belong  to  the 
body,  why  should  they  not  also  belong  to  one  another,  and 


P 


1  reasons  the 
r  nations,  it 
n  detail  the 
18  and  creeds 
Ing  farthest 
culture,  are 
^ht  allusion, 
ited  readers 
iheir  general 
iission  is  left 
cupied  with 

dered  is  the 

,mination  of 

pter.    What 

ices,  may  be 

levelopment. 

low  level  of 

of  biological 

makes  the 

one ;  what 

M     In    the 

ih  appear  in 

(ups  of  phe- 

bably  made 

ery  man  has 

a  phantom. 

the  body, 

he  phantom 

e  perceived 

3  able  to  go 

1  as  appear- 

step  would 

T  extremely 

It  is  merely 

jlong  to  the 

aother,  and 


^> 


ANIMISM. 


429 


be  manifestations  of  one  and  the  same  soul?    Let  them 
then  be  considered  as  united,  and  the  result  is  that  well-    ^ 
known  conception  which  may  be  described  as  an  appari-  ^ 
tional-aoul,  a  ghost-soul.     This,  at  any  rate,  corresponds 
with  the  actual  conception  of  the  personal  soul  or  spirit 
among  the  lower  races,  which  may  be  defined  as  follows :  It 
is  a  thin  unsubstantial  human  image,  in  its  nature  a  sort  of   ' 
vapour,  film,  or  shadow ;  the  cause  of  life  and  thought  in 
the  individual  it  animates ;   independently  possessing  the . 
personal  consciousness  and  volition  of  its  corporeal  owner,  •  s 
past  or  present ;  capable  of  leaving  the  body  far  behind,  to 
flash  swiftly  from  place  to  place  ;  mostly  impalpable  and  in-  0^ 
visible,  yet  also  manifesting  physical  power,  and  espociallyj^ 
appearing  to  men  waking  or  asleep  as  a  j^Eantas^fseparate 
from  the  body  of  which  it  bears  the  likeness ;  continuing  to 
exist  and  appear  to  men  after  the  death  of  that  body ;  able 
to  enter  into,  possess,  and  act  in  the  bodies  of  other  men, 
'  of  animals,  and  even  of  things.    Though  this  definition  is  by 
no  means  of  universal  application,  it  has  sufficient  gene- 
rality to  be  taken  as  a  standard,  modified  by  more  or  less 
divergence  among  any  particular  people.     Far  from  these 
world-wide  opinions  being  arbitrary  or  conventional  pro- 
ducts, it  is  seldom  even  justifiable  to  consider  their  uni- 
formity among  distant  races  as  proving  communication  of 
any  sort.    They  are  doctrines  answering  in  the  most  forcible 
way  to  the  plain  evidence  of  men's  senses,  as  interpreted  by 
a  fairly  consistent  and  rational  primitive  philosophy.     So 
well,  indeed,  does  primitive  animism  accouuL  for  the  facts 
of  nature,  that  it  has  held  its  place  into  the  higher  levels  of 
education.-  Though  classic  and  mediaeval  philosophy  modi- 
fied it  much,  and  modern  philosophy  has  handled  it  yet 
more  unsparingly,  it  has  so  far  retained  the  traces  of  its 
original  character,  that  heirlooms  of  primitive  ages  may  be 
claimed  in  the  existing  psychology  of  the  civilized  world. 
Out  of  the  vast  mass  of  evidence,  collected  among  the 
most  various  and  distant  races  of  mankind,  typical  details 
may  now  be  selected  to  display  the  earlier  theory  of  the 


1 


Vj 


.JK.. 


1  ^. 


-^ 


;  _ 


v^ 


'->, 


•^  0^ 


430 


ANIMISM. 


Boul,  the  relation  of  the  parts  of  thia  theory,  and  the 
manner  in  which  these  parts  have  heen  abandoned,  modi- 
fied, or  kept  up,  along  the  course  of  culture. 

To  understand  the  popular  conceptions  of  the  human 
soul  or  spirit,  it  is  instructive  to  notice  the  words  which 
have  been  found  suitable  to  express  it.  The^host  or  phan- 
tasm seen  by  the  dreamer  or  the  visionary  is  an  unsubstan- 
tial form,  like  a  shadow  or  reflexion,  and  thus  the  familiar 
term  of  the  shade  comes  in  to  express  tht  oul.  Thus  the 
Tasmanian  word  for  the  shadow  is  also  that  for  the  spirit ; ' 
the  Algonquins  describe  a  man's  soul  as  otahhuk,  *  his 
ahadowx*  ^  the  Quicbt^  language  uses  natuh  tor  '  shadow, 
soul ; '  ^  the  Arawak  ueja  means  'shadow,  sotil,  image;'* 
the  Abipones  made  the  one  word  lodJcal  serve  ibr  '  shadow, 
soul,  echo,  image.'  *  The  Zulus  not  only  use  the  word 
tunzi  for  '  shadow,  spirit,  ghost,'  but  they  consider  tbat 
at  death  the  shadow  of  a  man  will  in  some  way  depart  from 
the  corpse,  to  become  an  ancestral  spirit."  The  Basutos, 
not  only  call  the  spirit  remaining  after  death  the  xeritl  or 
'  shadow,'  but  they  think  that  if  a  man  walks  on  the  river 
bank,  a  crocodile  may  seize  his  shadow  in  the  water  and 
draw  him  in ;  "^  while  in  Old  Calabar  there  is  found  the 
same  identification  of  the  spirit  with  the  ukpon  or 
'  shadow,'  for  a  man  to  lose  which  is  fatal.^  There  are, 
thus  found  among  the  lower  races  not  only  the  types  of 
those  familiar  classic  terms,  the  iikia  and  umbra,  but  also 
what  seems  the  fundamental  thought  of  the  stories  of 
shadowless  men  still  curreiit  in  the  folklore  of  Europe,  and 
familiar  to  modern  readers  in  Chamisso's  tale   of  Peter 


'  Bonwick,  'Tasmanians,' p.  182. 

^  Tannor's  '  Narr.'  ed.  by  Jamea,  p.  291.     Also  Sproat,  p.  300  (Ahts). 

'  Brasseur,  '  Languo  Quichec,'  8.  v. 

*  Martius,  '  Ethnog.  Amer.'  vol.  i.  p.  795  ;  vol.  ii.  p.  310. 
'  Dobrizhoffer,  'Abipones,'  vol.  ii.  p.  194. 

•  DOhne,  'Zulu  Die'  s.  v.  'tunzi ;'  Callaway,  <  Rel.  of  Amazulu,'  pp.  91, 
126  ;  '  Zulu  Tales,'  vol  i.  p.  342. 

'  Casalis,  '  Basutos,'  p.  245  ;  Arboussot  and  Daumas,  'Voyage,'  p.  12. 
'  Goldie,  'Efik  Dictionary,'  s.  v.;   seo  KOlle,  'Afr.  Native  Lit.' p.  324 
(Kanuri).     Also  '  Journ.  Ind.  Archip.'  vol.  v.  p.  713  (Australian), 


ANIMIHM. 


431 


y,  and  the 
jned,  inodi-_ 

the  human 

'ords  which 

}8t  or  phan- 

unsubstan- 

jhe  familiar 

,     Thus  the 

the  spirit ; ' 

hchuk,  '  his 

)r  'shadow, 

I,  image  ; '  * 

or  *  shadow, 

)   the  word 

insider  that_ 

depart  from 

^he  BasutoB_ 

[he  seritl  or 

n  the  river 

water  and 

found  the 

ukpon    or 

There  are, 

le  types  of 

a,  but  also 

stories  of 

urope,  and 

of  Peter 

00  (Ahts). 


izulu,'  pp.  91, 

age,'  p.  12. 
e  Lit.'  p.  324 
ian). 


Schlomihl.  Thus  the  dead  in  Purgatory  knew  that  Dante 
was  alive  when  they  saw  that,  unlike  theirs,  his  figure  cast  a 
shadow  on  the  ground.^  Other  attributes  are  taken  into 
the  notion  of  soul  or  spirit,  with  especial  regard  to  its  being 
the  cause  of  life.  Thus  the  Caribs,  connecting  the  pulses 
with  spiritual  beings,  and  especially  considering  that  in  the 
heart  dwells  man's  chief  soul,  destined  to  a  future  heav(!nly 
lifej  could  reasonably  use  the  one  word  iouanni  for  'soul, 
life,  heart.'  ^  The  Tongans  supposed  the  soul  to  exist 
throughout  the  whole  extension  of  the  body,  but  particu- 
larly in  the  heart.  On  one  occasion,  the  natives  were 
declaring  to  a  European  that  a  man  buried  monthH  ago  was 
nevertheless  still  alive.  '  And  one,  endeavouring  to  make 
me  understand  what  he  meant,  took  hold  of  my  hand,  and 
squeezing  it,  said,  "  This  will  die,  but  the  life  that  is  within 
you  will  never  die ; "  with  his  other  hand  pointing  to  my 
heart.'  '  So  the  Basutos  say  of  a  dead  man  that  his  heart 
is  gone  out,  and  of  one  recovering  from  sickness  that  his 
heart  is  coming  back.*  This  corresponds  to  the  familiar 
Old  World  view  of  the  heart  as  the  prime  mover  in  life, 
thought,  and  passion.  The  connexion  of  soul  and  blood, 
familiar  to  the  Karens  and  Papuas,  appears  prominently  in 
Jewish  and  Arabic  philosophy .°  To  educated  moderns  the 
idea  of  the  Macusi  Indians  of  Guiana  may  seem  quaint, 
that  although  the  body  will  decay,  '  the  man  in  our  eyes ' 
will  not  die,  but  wander  about."  Yet  the  association  of 
personal  animation  with  the  pupil  of  the  eye  is  f  r^iliar  to 
European  folklore,  which  not  unreasonably  disceiiu  "i  a  sign 
of  bewitchment  or  approaching  death  in  the  disappearance 
of  the  image,  pupil,  or  baby,  from  the  dim  eyeballs  of  the 
sick  man.'' 

'  Dante,  'Div.  Comm.  Purgatorio,'  canto  iii.    Compare  Grohmann,  'Aber- 
glaubon  ana  Biihmon.'  p.  221.     Soc  ante,  p.  85. 
•'  Rochofort,  pp.  42'.t,  .IIG  ;  J.  G.  Miiller,  p.  207. 

'  Mariner,  '  Tonga  la.'  vol.  ii.  p.  135  ;  S.  S.  Farmer,  '  Tonga,'  &c.  p.  131. 
'  Casalis,  1.  c.     See  also  Mariner,  ibid. 
•'  Bastlan,  '  Psychologic,'  pp.  15-23. 
«  J.  H.  Bernau,  '  Brit.  Guiana,'  p.  134. 
'  Grimm,  '  D.  M.'  pp.  1028,  1133.     Anglo-Saxon  man-lien. 


p> 


ys^ 


^ 


I 


V 

/ 


|;    , 


432 


}/!> 


r 


l^ 


a' 


ANIMISM. 


The  act  of  breathing,  so  characteristic  of  the  higher 
animals  during  life,  and  coinciding  so  closely  with  life  in  its 
departure,  has  been  repeatedly  and  naturally  identified  with 
the  life  or  soul  itself.  Laura  Bridgman  showed  in  her  in- 
structive way  the  analogy  between  the  effects  of  restricted 
sense  and  restricted  civilization,  when  one  day  she  made 
the  gesture  of  taking  something  away  from  her  mouth :  '  I 
dreamed,'  she  explained  in  words,  '  that  God  took  away 
my  breath  to  heaven.'  ^  It  is  thus  that  West  Australians 
used  one  word  waug  for  '  breath,  spirit,  soul ; '  '^  that  in  the 
Netela  language  of  California,  pints  means  '  life,  breath, 
soul;'^  that  certain  Greeiilanders  reckoned  two  souls  to 
man,  namely  his  shadow  and  his  breath ;  *  that  the  Malays 
say  the  soul  of  the  dying  man  escapes  through  his  nostrils, 
and  in  Java  use  the  same  word  iiawa  for  'breath,  life, 
soul.'  °  How  the  notions  of  life,  heart,  breath,  and  phantom 
unite  in  the  one  conception  of  a  soul  or  spirit,  and  at  the 
same  time  how  loose  and  vague  such  ideas  are  among 
barbaric  races,  is  well  brought  into  view  in  the  answers  to 
a  religious  inquest  held  in  1528  among  the  natives  of 
Nicaragua.  '  When  they  die,  there  comes  out  of  their 
mouth  something  that  resembles  a  person,  and  is  called 
Julio  [Aztec  yuli=to  live].  This  being  goes  to  the  place 
where  the  man  and  woman  are.  It  is  like  a  person,  but 
does  not  die,  and  the  body  remains  here.'  Question.  '  Do 
those  who  go  up  on  high  keep  the  same  body,  the  same 
face,  and  the  same  limbs,  as  here  below? '  Ansiver.  ' No  ; 
there  is  only  the  heart.'  Question.  '  But  since  they  tear 
out  their  hearts  [i.e.  when  a  captive  was  sacrificed],  what 
happens  then  ? '  Anbiver.  '  It  is  not  precisely  the  heart, 
but  that  in  them  which  makes  them  live,  and  that  quits  the 
body  when  they  die.'     Or,  as  stated  in  another  interro- 


'  Licber,  '  Laura  Bridg-nan,'  in  Smithsonian  Contrib.  vol.  ii.  p.  8. 

2  G.  F.  Moore,  '  Vocah.  of  W.  Australia,'  p.  103. 

'  Brinton,  p.  .'50,  see  p.  '2S^>  ;  Bastian,  '  Psychologie,'  p.  15. 

'  Cranz,  '  GrOnland,'  p.  257. 

"  Crawfurd,  '  Malay  Or.  and  Die'  s.  v. ;  Marsden,  '  Sumatra,'  p.  386. 


the  higher 
ith  life  in  its 
mtified  with 
3d  in  her  in- 
of  restricted 
,y  she  made 
[•  mouth  :  '  I 

took  away 
Australians 

that  in  the 
life,  breath, 
wo  souls  to 
1  the  Malays 
his  nostrils, 
breath,  life, 
nd  phantom 
;,  and  at  the 

are  among 
}  answers  to 

natives  of 
ut  of  their 
id  is  called 
to  the  place 
person,  but 
estion.  '  Do 
y,  the  same 
siuer.  *  No  ; 
e  they  tear 
ficed],  what 

the  heart, 
lat  quits  the 
ler  interro- 

I.  ii.  p.  8. 


ira,'  p.  386. 


ANIMISM. 


433 


gatory, '  It  is  not  their  heart  that  goes  up  above,  but  what 
makes  them  live,  that  is  to  say,  the  breath  that  issues  from 
their  mouth  and  is  called  Julio.'  ^  The  conception  of  the 
soul  as  breath  may  be  followed  up  through  Semitic  and 
Aryan  etymology,  and  thus  into  the  main  streams  of  the 
philosophy  of  the  world.  Hebrew  shows  nepheah, '  breath,' 
passing  into  all  the  meanings  of  '  life,  soul,  mind,  animal,' 
while  rimch  and  neshamah  make  the  like  transition  from 
*  breath'  to  'spirit';  and  to  these  the  Arabic  nefs  and 
ruh  correspond.  The  same  is  the  history  of  Sanskrit  dtman 
and  prdna,  of  Greek  psyche  and  2ineuma,  of  Latin  animus, 
anivia,  spiritus.  So  Slavonic  du^h  has  developed  the  mean- 
ing of  '  breath  '  into  that  of  soul  or  spirit ;  and  the  dialects 
of  the  Gypsies  have  this  word  duJc  with  the  meanings  of 
'  breath,  spirit,  ghost,'  whether  these  pariahs  brought  the 
word  from  India  as  part  of  their  inheritance  of  Aryan 
speech,  or  whether  they  adopted  it  in  their  migration  across 
Slavonic  lands.^  German  cjeist  and  English  ghost,  too,  may 
pMsibly  have  the  same  original  sense  of  breath^  And  if  any  S  \ 
should  tnmk  such  expressions  due  to  mere  metaphor,  they 
may  judge  the  strength  of  the  implied  connexion  between 
breath  and  spirit  by  cases  of  most  unequivocal  significance. 
Among  the  Seminoles  of  Florida,  when  a  woman  died  in 
childbirth,  the  infant  was  held  over  her  face  to  receive  her 
parting  spirit,  and  thus  acquire  strength  and  knowledge  for 

its  future  ijse. These  Indians  could  have  well  understood 

why  at  the  death-bed  of  an  ancient  Roman,  the  nearest 
kinsman  leant  over  to  inhale  the  last  breath  of  the  depart- 
ing^ (et  excipies  banc  animam  ore  pio).  Their  state  of  mind 
is  kept  up  to  this  day  among  Tyrolese  peasants,  who  can 
still  fancy  a  good  man's  soul  to  issue  from  his  mouth  at 
death  like  a  little  white  cloud.^ 


*  Oviedo,  *  Hist,  du  Nicaragua,'  pp.  21-t)l. 

'  Pott,  'Zigeuner,'  vol.  ii.  p.  306 ;  '  Indo-Germ.  Wurzel-WOrterbuch,'  vol.  i. 
p.  1073  ;  Borrow,  *  Lavengro,'  vol.  ii.  ch.  xxvi.  *  write  the  lil  of  him  whose 
dook  gallops  down  that  hill  every  night,'  see  vol.  iii.  ch.  iv. 

"  Brinton,  '  Myth's  of  New  World,'  p.  253  ;  Comiu.  in  Vifg.  ^u.  iv.  084  ; 

VOL.  I.  F  f 


/^ 


,t'' 


/ 


434 


ANIMISM. 


K*a 


t  n 


/ 


y- 


r>-' 


/ 


It  will  be  shown  that  men,  in  their  composite  and  con- 
fused notions  of  the  soul,  have  brought  into  connexion  a 
list  of  manifestations  of  life  and  thought  even  more  multi- 
farious than  this.  But  also,  seeking  to  avoid  such  pes* 
plexity  of  combination,  they  have  sometimes  endeavoured 
to  define  and  classify  more  closely,  especially  by  the  theor^i^ 
that  man  has  a  combination  of  several  kinds  of  spirit,  sotrl, 
or  image,  to  which  different  functions  belongs-  Already 
in  the  barbaric  world  such  classification  has  been  invented 
or  adopted.  Thus  the  Fijians  distinguish  between  a  man's 
'dark  spirit'  or  shadow,  which  goes  to  Hades,  and  his 
*  light  spirit '  or  reflexion  in  water  or  a  mirror,  which  stays 
near  where  he  dies.^  The  Malagasy  say  that  the  saina  or 
mind  vanishes  at  death,  the  aina  or  life  becomes  mere  air, 
but  the  matoatoa  or  ghost  hovers  round  the  tomb.^  _In_ 
North  America,  the  duality  of  the  soul  is  a  strongly  marked 
Algonquin  belief ;  one  soul  goes  out  and  sees  dreams  while 
the  other  reroains  behind ;  at  death  one  of  the  two  abides 
with  the  body,  and  forHiis  the  survivors  leave  offerings  of 
food^  while  the  other  departs  to  the  land  of  the  dead.  A 
division  into  three  souls~is  also  known,  and  the  Dakotas 
say  that  man  has  four  souls,  one  remaining  vvitb  the  corpse, 
one  staying  in  the  village,  one  going  in  the  air,  and  one  to 
*  the  land  of  spirits.''^  The  Karens  distinguish  between  the 
'  Ih'  or '  kelah,'  the  personal  life-phantom,  and  the  '  thah,'  the 
responsible  moral  soul.*  More  or  less  under  Hindu  influence, 
the  Khonds  have  a  fourfold  division,  as  follows  :  the  first  soul 
is  that  capable  of  beatification  or  restoration  to  Boora  the 
Good  Deity  ;  the  second  is  attached  to  a  Khond  tribe  on  earth 
and  is  re-born  c^en    ation  after  generation,  so  that  at  the  birth 


Cic.  Verr.  v.  45  ;  Wuttke,  '  Volksaberglaube,'p.  210  ;  Rochholz,  'Deutscher 
Glaubo,'  &c.  vol,  i.  p.  111. 

'  Williams,  'Fiji,'  vol.  i.  p.  241. 

*  Ellis,  '  Madagascar,'  vol.  i.  p.  393. 

'  Charlevoix,  vol.  vi.  pp.  75-8  ;  Schoolcraft, '  Indian  Tribes,'  part  i.  pp.  33, 
83,  part  iii.  p.  229,  part  iv.  p.  70 ;  Waitz,  vol.  iii.  p.  194  ;  J.  G.  Miiller, 
pp.  66,  207-8. 

•  Cross  in  '  Journ.  Amer.  Oriental  Soc'  vol.  iv.  p.  810, 


ite  and  con- 
connexion  a 
more  multi- 
Id  such  pes* 
endeavoured 
y  the  theorji^ 
'  spirit,  sowl, 
^-  Already 
jen  invented 
'^een  a  man's 
les,  and  his 
which  stays 
he  saina  or 
es  mere  air, 

tomb.'^    In^ 
igly  marked 
reams  while 

two  abides 

offerings  of 
e  dead.  A 
he  Dakotas 
I  the  corpse, 

and  one  to 
»etween  the 
i '  thah,'  the 

u  influence, 
he  first  soul 
Boora  the 
ibe  on  earth 
at  the  birth 

Iz,  'Deutscher 


'  part  i.  pp.  33, 
J,  G.  Muller, 


ANIMISM. 


435 


of  each  child  the  priest  asks  who  has  returned ;  the  third 
goes  out  to  hold  spiritual  intercourse,  leaving  the  body  in  a 
languid  state,  and  it  is  this  soul  which  can  pass  for  a  time 
into  a  tiger,  and  transmigi*ates  for  punishment  after  death ; 
the  fourth  dies  on  the  dissolution  of  the  body.^  Such 
classifications  resemble  those  of  higher  nations,  as  for 
instance  the  three-fold  division  of  shade,  manes,  and 
spirit : 

'  Bis  duo  sunt  homini,  manes,  caro,  spiritus,  umbra  : 

Quatuor  hsec  loci  bis  duo  suscipiunt. 
Terra  tegit  carnem,  tumulum  circumvolat  umbra, 
Manes  Orcus  habet,  spiritus  astra  petit.* 

Not  attempting  to  follow  up  the  details  of  such  psychical 
division  into  the  elaborate  systems  of  literary  nations,  I 
shall  not  discuss  the  dis+inction  which  the  ancient  Egyptians 
seem  to  have  made  in  the  Ritual  of  the  Dead  between  the 
man's  ba,  akh,  ha,  khaha,  translated  by  Dr.  Birch  as  his 
'  soul,'  '  mind,'  '  image,'  '  shade,'  or  the  Rabbinical  division 
into  what  may  be  roughly  described  as  the  bodily,  spiritual, 
and  celestial  souls,  or  the  distinction  between  the  emanative 
and  genetic  souls  in  Hindu  philosophy,  or  the  distribution 
of  life,  apparition,  ancestral  spirit,  among  the  three  souls 
of  the  Chinese,  or  the  demarcations  of  the  nous,  psyche,  and 
pneuvia,  or  of  the  anivia  and  animus,  or  the  famous 
classic  and  mediaeval  theories  of  the  vegetal,  sensitive,  and 
rational  souls.  Suffice  it  to  point  out  here  that  such  specu 
lation  dates  back  to  the  barbaric  condition  of  our  race,  in  a 
state  fairly  comparing  as  to  scientific  value  with  much  that 
has  gained  esteem  within  the  precincts  of  higher  culture, 
It  would  be  a  difficult  task  to  treat  such  classification  on  a 
consistent  logical  basis.  Terms  corresponding  with  those 
of  life,  mind,  soul,  spirit,  ghost,  and  so  forth,  are  not  thought  V 
of  as  describing  really  separate  entities,  so  much  as  the 
several  forms  and  functions  of  one  individual  being.     Thus 

*  Macpherson.ipp.  91-2.     See  also  Klemm,  '  C.  G.'  vol.  iii.  p.  71  (Lapp) ; 
St.  John,  '  Far  East,'  vol.  i.  p.  189  (Dayaks), 

Ff  2 


\j' 


m 


m 


SPi'l 


K.':^| 


fi. 


■Ji 


/ 


436 


ANIMISM. 


the  confusion  which  here  prevails  in  our  own  thought  and 
language,  in  a  manner  typical  of  the  thought  and  language 
of  mankind  in  general,  is  in  fact  due  not  merely  to  vague- 
ness of  terms,  but  to  an  ancient  theory  of  substantial  unity 
which  underlies  them.  Such  ambiguity  of  language,  how- 
ever, will  be  found  to  interfere  little  with  the  present 
enquiry,  for  the  details  given  of  the  nature  and  action  of 
spirits,  souls,  phantoms,  will  themselves  define  the  exact 
sense  such  words  are  to  be  taken  in. 

The  early  animistic  theory  of  vitality,  regarding  the  func- 
tions  of  life  as  caused  by  the  soul,  offers  to  the  savage  mind 
an  explanation  of  several  bodily  and  mental  conditions,  as 
being  effects  of  a  departure  of  the  soul  or  some  of  its  con- 
stituent spirits.  This  theory  holds  a  wide  and  strong 
position  in  savage  biology.  The  South  Australians  express 
it  when  they  say  of  one  insensible  or  unconscious,  that  he 
is  '  w  ilyamarraba,'  i.e., '  without  soul.'  ^  Among  the  Algon- 
quin Indians  of  North  America,  we  hear  of  sickness  being 
accounted  for  by  the  patient's  '  shadow '  being  unsettled  or 
detached  from  his  body,  and  of  the  convalescent  being 
repi'oached  for  exposing  himself  before  his  shadow  was 
safely  settled  down  in  him ;  where  we  should  say  that  a 
man  was  ill  and  recovered,  they  would  consider  that  he 
<lied,  but  came  again.  Another  account  from  among  the 
same  race  explains  the  condition  of  men  lying  in  le- 
thargy or  trance  ;  their  souls  have  travelled  to  the  banks 
of  the  River  of  Death,  but  have  been  driven  back  and  re- 
turn to  re-animate  their  bodies.^  Among  the  Fijians, 
'  when  any  one  faints  or  dies,  their  spirit,  it  is  said,  may 
sometimes  be  brought  back  by  calling  after  it ;  and  occa- 
sionally the  ludicrous  scene  is  witnessed  of  a  stout  man 
lying  at  full  length,  and  bawling  out  lustily  for  the  return  of 
his  own  soiih'  ^    To  the  negroes  of  North  Guinea,  derange- 

'  Shiirmann,  '  Vocab.  of  Parnkalla  Lang.'  s.  v. 

^  Tanner's  *Narr.'  p.  21)1 ;  Keating,  'Narr.  of  Long's  Exp.'  vol.  ii.  p.  15-1. 
^  Williams,  'Fiji,'  vol.  i.  p.  242;  see  the  converse  process  of  catching 
away  a  man's  soul,  causing  him  to  piue  and  die,  p.  250. 


ANIMISM. 


437 


thought  and 
,nd  language 
ily  to  vague- 
tantial  unity 
iguage,  how- 
the  present 
md  action  of 
le  the  exact 

ing  the  func- 
3avage  mind 
anditions,  as 
3  of  its  con- 
and  strong 
ians  express 
LOUS,  that  he 
y  the  Algon- 
kness  being 
unsettled  or 
scent  being 
hadow  was 

say  that  a 
der  that  he 

among  the 
yiug  in  le- 

the  banks 

ick  and  re- 

ihe   Fijians, 

s  said,  may 

and  occa- 

stout  man 
le  I'eturn  of 
sa,  derange- 


ment or  dotage  is  caused  by  the  patient  being  prematurely 
deserted  by  his  soul,  sleep  being  a  more  temporary  with- 
drawal.^ Thus,  in  various  countries,  the  bringing  back  of, 
lost  souls  becomes  a  regular  part  of  the  sorcerer's  or  priest's  ^ 
profession.  Tbs  Salish  Indians  of  Oregon  regard  the  spiritj 
asjiistiuct  from  the  vital  principle,  and  capable  of  quitting 
the  body  for  a  short  time  without  the  patient  being  con- 
scious of  its  absence ;  but  tc  avoid  fatal  consequences  it 
must  be  restored  as  soon  as  possible,  and  accordingly  the 
medicine-man  in  solemn  form  replaces  it  down  through  the 
patient's  head.-  The  Turanian  or  Tatar  races  of  Northern 
Asia  strongly  hold  the  theory  of  the  soul's  departure  in 
disease,  and  among  the  .Buddhist  tribes  the  Lamaa  carry 
out  the  ceremony  of  soul-restoration  in  most  elaborate 
form.  When  a  man  has  been  robbed  by  a  demon  of  his 
rational  soul^  and  has  only  his  animal  soul  left,  his  senses 
and  memory  grow  weak  and  he  falls  into  a  dismal  state. 
Then  the  Lama  undertakes  to  cure  him,  and  with  quaint 
rites  exorcises  the  evil  demon.  But  if  this  fails,  then  it  is  the 
patient's  soul  itself  that  cannot  or  will  not  find  its  way  back. 
So  the  sick  man  is  laid  out  in  his  best  attire  and  surrounded 
with  his  most  attractive  possessions,  the  friends  and  rela- 
tives go  thrice  round  the  dwelling,  affectionately  calling  back 
the  soul  by  name,  while  as  a  further  inducement  the  Lama 
reads  from  his  book  descriptions  of  the  pains  of  hell,  and 
the  dangers  incurred  by  a  soul  which  wilfully  abandons  its 
body,  and  then  at  last  the  whole  assembly  declare  with  one 
voice  that  the  wandering  spirit  has  returned  and  the  patiet.'t 
will  recover.^  The  Karens  of  Birma  will  run  about  pre- 
tending to  catch  a  sick  man's  wandering  soul,  or  as  they 
say  with  the  Greeks  and  Slavs,  his  '  butterfly '  (leip-pya), 
and  at  last  drop  it  down  upon  his,  Lead.  Th^  Karen  doc- 
trine  of  the  'la'   is  indeed  a   perfect  and  we!    marked 


'  vol.  ii.  p.  154. 
is  of  catching 


'  J.  L.  W^ilson,  '  W.  Afr.'  p.  220. 

^  Lastian,  '  Mensch,'  vol.  ii.  p.  319  ;  also  Sproat,  p.  213  (Vancouver's  I.). 
'  Bastian,  '  Psychologio,'  p.  34  ;   Gmelin,  '  Reisen  (lurch  Sibirien,'  vol.  ii. 
p.  359  (Yakuts) ;  Ravenstein,  'Amur,'  p.  351  (Tunguz). 


'i^'^r' 


Wf 


ti. 


3^ 


ANI'iIISM. 


I^¥' 


,  vitiilistic  system.  This  ?a,  soul,  ghost,  or  genius,  inay  b^ 
separated  from  the  body  it  belongs  to,  and  it  is  p.  matter  of 
the  deepest  interest  to  the  Karen  to  keep  his  Ih  with  liiin, 
by  calling  it,  making  offerings  of  food  to  it,  arti  so  forth. 
It  is  especially  when  the  body  is  asleep,  I  hat  tb  uoul  goos 
out  and  wanders ;  if  h  is  detained  beyor.d  a  certain  time, 
disease  ensues,  and  if  permanontfv,  then  its  owiier  dies. 
When  the  'wee'  or  spiriL-loctor  is  -laployed  to  call  back 
the  departed  shade  or  life  of  a  Karen,  if  he  cannot  recove'' 
it  from  the  region  of  the  dej'd,  he  wil'  soiaotimes  take  the 
shade  of  a  living-  man  and  transfer  it  to  the  dead,  while  il 
propivr  o'.  ner,  whose  soul  has  ventured  out  in  a  dN>am, 
Bickori:  lisui  die').  Or  T;heu  a  Karen  becomes  sick,  languid 
and  pixiing  h\An  his  Ih  having  left  him,  his  friends  will 
perform  a  ciemony  with  a  garment  of  the  invalid's  and 
a  fowl  wJ.icU  is  cooked  and  offered  with  rice,  invok- 
ing the  apirit  with  fornml  prayers  to  come  ]:>ack  to  the 
patient.^  This  ceremony  is  perhaps  ethnologically  con- 
nected, though  it  is  not  easy  to  say  by  what  manner  of 
ditiij^ion  or  when,  with  a  rite  still  practised  in  China. 
Whtri  a  Chinese  is  at  the  point  of  death,  and  his  soul 
is  supposed  to  be  already  out  of  his  body,  a  relative 
may  be  seen  holdiig  up  the  patient's  coat  on  a  long 
bamboo,  to  which  a  white  cock  is  often  fastened,  while 
a  Tauist  priest  by  incantations  brings  the  departed 
spirit  into  the  coat,  in  order  to  put  it  back  into  the 
sick  man.  If  the  bamboo  after  a  time  turns  round  slowly 
in  the  holder's  hands,  this  shows  that  the  spirit  is  inside 
the  garment.^ 

Such  temporary  exit  of  the  soul  has  a  world-wide  appli- 
cation to  the  proceedings  of  the  sorcerer,  priest,  or  seer 
himself.     He  professes  to  send  forth  his  spirit  on  distant 


•  Bastian,  'Oestl.  Asien.'  vol.  i.  p.  143;  vol.  ii.  pp.  388  ;  ;  vol.  iii. 
p.  236.  Mnson,  'Karens,'  1.  c.  p.  196,  &c. ;  Cross,  '  Karer.  >  'Jourii. 
Amer.  Oriental  Soc'  vol.  iv.  1854,  p.  307.  See  also  St.  John.  i.  ,ast,'  1.  c. 
(Eayaks). 

2  Doolittle,  'Chi'        '  voL  i,  p   1-50. 


nius,  may  be 
is  e,  maitei'  of 

Ik  vnth  liim, 
au-i  80  forth, 
tb  •  soul  go 08 

certs'. in  time, 

owiier  dies, 
to  call  back 
nnot  recove?' 
mes  take  the 
ad,  while  i( 

in  a  dtoam, 
sick,  languid 

friends  will 
uvalid's  and 
rice,  invok- 
]>ack  to  the 
igically  con- 
t  manner  of 
d  in  China, 
-nd  his  soul 
,  a   relative 

on  a  long 
:ened,  while 
le  departed 
ok  into  the 
)und  slowly 
dt  is  inside 

wide  appli- 
est,  or  seer 
I  on  distant 


;  toI.  iii. 
■  'Journ. 
^iast,'  1.  c. 


ANIMISM. 


439 


journeys,  and  probably  often  believes  his  soul  released  for  a 
time  from  its  bodily  prison,  as  in  the  case  of  that  remark- 
able dreamer  and  visionary  Jerome  Cardan,  who  describes 
himself  as  having  the  faculty  of  passing  out  of  his  senses  as 
into  ecstasy  whenever  he  will,  feeling  when  he  goes  into 
this  state  a  sort  of  separation  near  the  heart  as  if  his  soul 
were  departing,  this  state  beginning  from  his  brain  and 
passing  down  his  spine,  and  he  then  feeling  only  that  he  is 
out  of  himself.^  Thus  the  Australian  native  doctor  is  al- 
leged to  obtain  his  initiation  by  visiting  the  world  of  spirits 
in  a  trance  of  two  or  three  days'  duration ;  ^  the  Khond  priest 
authenticates  his  claim  to  office  by  remaining  from  one  to 
fourteen  days  in  a  languid  and  dreamy  state,  caused  by  one  of 
his  souls  being  away  in  the  divine  presence ;  '^  the  Greenland 
angekok's  soul  goes  forth  from  his  body  to  fetch  his  familiar 
demon  ;*  the  Turanian  shaman  lies  in  lethargy  while  his 
soul  departs  to  bring  hidden  wisdom  from  the  land  of 
spirits."  The  literature  of  more  progressive  races  supplies 
similar  accounts.  A  characteristic  story  from  old  Scandi- 
navia is  that  of  the  Norse  chief  Ingimund,  who  shut  up 
three  Finns  in  a  hut  for  three  nights,  that  they  might  visit 
Iceland  and  inform  him  of  the  lie  of  the  country  where  he 
was  to  settle;  their  bodies  became  rigid,  they  sent  their 
souls  on  the  errand,  and  awakening  after  the  three  days  they 
gave  a  description  of  the  Vatnsdael.^  The  typical  classic 
case  is  the  story  of  Hermotimos,  whose  prophetic  soul  went 
out  iTom  time  to  time  to  visit  distant  regions,  till  at  last  his 
wife  burnt  the  lifeless  body  on  the  funeral  pile,  and  when 
the  poor  soul  came  back,  there  was  no  longer  a  dwelling  for 
it  to  animate.'^     A  group  of  the  legendary  visits  to  the 

'  Cardan,  '  Do  Varietate  Ror  -m,'  Basel,  1556,  cap.  xliii. 
»  Stanbrid!  V,    Abei .  of  Victoria,'  in  '  Tr.  Eth.  Soc'  vol.  i.  p.  300. 
'  Mai'p\    r<vjn,  'India,' p.  1"?. 
♦  Gwi,  'GrOnland,'  p.  269.     Soc  also  Sproat,  1.  c. 

»  Riilm,    'Finland,'  p.   303;   Castren,   'F:im.  ilytli.'  p.   181;   Bastian, 
'  Mensch,'  vol.  ii.  p.  319. 
'  Vatnsdsela  Saga  ;  Baring-Gould,  '  Werewolves,'  p.  ^n. 
'  Plin.  vii.  53 ;  Lucian.  Hermotimus,  Muse.  Encom.  7. 


440 


ANIMISM. 


Nr> 


spirit-world,  which  will  be  described  in  the  next  chapter, 
belong  to  th's  class.  A  typical  spiritualistic  instance  may 
l"e  quoted  f-om  Jung- Stilling,  who  says  that  examples  have 
come  to  his  knowledge  of  sick  persons  who,  longing  to 
see  absent  friends,  have  fallen  into  a  swoon  during  which 
they  have  appeared  to  the  distant  objects  of  their  affection.^ 
As  an  illustration  from  our  own  folk-lore,  the  well-known 
superstition  may  serve,  that  fasting  watchers  on  St.  John's 
Eve  may  see  the  apparitions  of  those  doomed  to  die  during 
the  year  come  with  the  clergyman  to  the  church  door  and 
knock ;  these  apparitions  are  spirits  who  come  forth  from 
their  bodies,  for  the  minister  has  been  noticed  to  be  much 
troubled  in  his  sleep  while  his  phantom  wae  thus  engaged, 
and  when  one  of  a  party  of  watchers  fell  into  a  sound  sleep 
and  could  not  be  roused,  the  others  saw  his  apparition 
knock  at  the  church  door.'^  Modern  Europe  has  indeed 
kept  closely  enough  to  he  lines  of  early  philosophy,  for 
such  ideas  to  have  little  strangeness  to  our  own  time. 
Language  preserves  record  of  them  in  such  expressions 
as  'out  of  oneself,'  'beside  oneself,'  'in  an  ecstasy,' 
and  he  who  says  that  his  spirit  goes  forth  to  meet  n, 
friend,  can  still  realize  in  the  phrase  a  meaning  deeper 
than  metaphor. 

This  eame  doctrine  forms  one  side  of  the  theory  of  dreams 
prevalent  among  the  lower  races.  Certain  of  the  Green- 
landers,  Cranz  remarks,  consider  that  the  soul  quits  the 
body  in  the  night  and  goes  out  hunting,  dancing,  and  visit- 
ing ;  their  dreams,  which  are  frequent  and  lively,  having 
brought  them  to  this  opinion.^  Among  the  Indians  of 
North  America,  we  hear  of  the  dreamer's  soul  leaving  his 
body  and  wandering  in  quest  of  things  attractive  to  it. 
These  things  the  waking  man  must  endeavour  to  obtain, 


See 


'  R.  D.  Owen,  '  Footfalls  on  the  Boundary  of  another  World,'  p.  259 
A.  R.  Wallace,  '  Scientific  Aspect  of  the  Supernatural,'  p.  43. 

"  Brand,  'Pop.  Ant.'  vol.  i.  p.  331,  vol.  iii.  p.  236.    See  Calmet,  'Diss, 
sur  les  Esprits  ; '  Maury,  '  Magie,'  part  ii.  eh.  iv. 

^  Cranz,  '  GrOnland,'  p.  257. 


ANIMISM. 


441 


text  chapter, 
Q stance  may 
amples  have 
,  longing  to 
uring  which 
ir  affection.^ 
well-known 
n  St.  John's 
a  die  during 
ih  door  and 
}  forth  from 
to  be  much 
us  engaged, 
sound  sleep 

apparition 
has  indeed 
losophy,  for 

own  time, 
expressions 
ecstasy,' 
to  meet  im 
ling  deeper 

of  dreams 
;he  Green- 
quits  the 
and  visit- 
ly,  having 
ndians  of 
saving  his 
live  to  it. 
to  obtain, 

p.  259.     See 
Imet,  'Diss. 


lest  his  soul  be  troubled,  and  quit  the  body  altogether.^ 
The  New  Zealanders  considered  the  dreaming  soul  to  leave 
the  body  and  return,  even  travelling  to  the  region  of  the 
dead  to  hold  converse  with  its  friends.^  The  '"agals  of 
Luzon  object  to  waking  a  sleeper,  on  account  of  the  absence 
of  his  soul.'*  The  Karens,  whose  theory  of  the  wandering 
soul  has  just  been  noticed,  explain  dreams  to  be  what  this 
\k  sees  and  experiences  in  its  journeys  when  it  has  left  the 
body  asleep.  They  even  account  with  much  acuteness  for 
the  fact  that  we  are  apt  to  dream  oi  people  and  places 
which  we  knew  before ;  the  leip-pya,  they  say,  can  only 
visit  the  regions  where  the  body  it  belongs  to  has  been 
already.*  Onward  from  the  savage  state,  the  idea  of  the 
spirit's  departure  in  sleep  may  be  traced  into  the  specu- 
lative philosophy  of  higher  nations,  as  in  the  Vedanta 
system,  and  the  Kabbala.^  St.  Augustine  tells  one  of  the 
double  narratives  which  so  well  illustrate  theories  of  this 
kind.  The  man  who  tells  Augustine  the  story  relates  that, 
at  home  one  night  before  going  to  sleep,  he  saw  coming  to 
him  a  certain  philosopher,  most  well  known  to  him,  who 
then  expounded  to  him  certain  Platonic  passages,  which 
when  asked  previously  he  had  refused  to  explain.  And 
when  he  (afterwards)  enquired  of  this  philosopher  why  he 
did  at  his  house  what  he  had  refused  to  do  when  asked  at 
his  own:  'I  did  not  do  it,'  said  the  philosopher,  'but  I 
dreamt  I  did.'  And  thus,  says  Augustine,  that  was  ex- 
hibited to  one  by  phantastic  image  while  waking,  which  the 
other  saw  in  dream."  European  folk-lore,  too,  has  preserved 
interesting  details  of  this  primitive  dream-theory,  such  as 

'  Waitz,  vol.  iii.  p.  195. 

^  Taylor,  '  New  Zealand, 'pp.  104, 184,  333  ;  Baker  in  'Tr.  Eth.  Soc' vol.  i. 
p.  57. 

■'  Bastian,  'Menach,'  vol.  ii.  p.  319  ;  Jagor  in  'Journ.  Eth.  Soc'  vol.  ii. 
p.  175. 

*  Mason,  'Karens,'  1.  c.  p.  199;  Cross,  1.  c.  ;  Bastian,  'Oestl.  Asien,' 
vol.  i.  p.  144,  vol.  ii.  p.  389,  vol.  iii.  p.  266. 

*  Bastian,  '  Ps  c'  logie,"  pp.  16-20  ;  Eisenmenger,  vol.  i.  p.  458,  vol.  ii. 
pp.  13,  20,  45;  ick,  'Kabbale,'  p.  235, 

"  Augustin.  I)   Oiv.  Dei,  xviii.  18. 


442 


ANIMISM. 


f'^m 


ft.-' 


^ 


the  fear  of  turning  a  sleeper  over  lest  the  absent  soul  should 
miss  the  way  baoV  X'ncf  Gunthram's  legend  is  one  of  a 
group  interesting  iV.ni  he  aamo  point  of  view.  The  king 
lay  in  the  wuod  awitop  with  his  head  in  his  faithful  hench- 
man's lap ;  the  servant  saw  as  it  were  a  snake  issue  from 
his  lord's  mouth  and  run  to  the  brook,  but  it  could  not 
pass,  so  the  servant  laid  his  sword  across  the  water,  and  the 
creatuv(>  ran  along  it  and  up  info  ..tain  -,  after  a  while 

it  came  back  and  roturni  d  into  the  mouth  of  the  sleeping 
king,  who  waking  told  him  how  he  had  dreamt  that  he  went 
over  an  iron  bridge  into  a  mountain  full  of  gold.^  This  is 
opo  of  those  instructive  legends  which  preserve  for  us,  as  in 
a  vnuseum,  relics  of  an  early  intellectual  condition  of  our 
Aryan  race,  in  thoughts  which  to  our  modern  minds  have 
fallen  to  the  level  of  quaint  fancy,  but  which  still  remain 
sound  and  reasonable  philosophy  to  the  savage.  A  Karen 
at  this  day  would  appreciate  every  point  of  the  story ;  the 
familiar  notion  of  spirits  not  Ciossing  water,  which  he  ex- 
emplifies in  his  Burmese  forests  by  str  oching  thrt.tds 
across  the  brook  for  the  ghosts  to  pass  along ;  the  idea  of 
the  soul  going  forth  embodied  in  an  animal ;  and  the  theory 
of  the  dream  being  a  real  journey  of  the  sleeper's  soul. 
Finally,  this  old  belief  still  finds,  as  such  beliefs  so  often 
do,  a  refuge  in  modern  poetry : 

'Yon  child  is  dreamiii!^  far  away, 
And  is  nit  where  ^  -^  seems.' 

This  opinion,  however,  only  constitutes  one  of  several 
parts  of  the  theory  of  dreams  in  savage  psychology.  An- 
other part  has  aL  j  a  place  here,  lie  view  that  human  souls 
come  from  without  to  visit  the  sleepei,  who  sees  Saem.  as 
dreams.  These  two  views  are  b;^  '  o  means  incompatible. 
The  N  orth  American  Indian, ■  '  lowc' !  themselves  the  alterna- 
tive of  supposing  a  dream  t  eit  er  a  visit  from  the  soul 
of  the  person  or  object  droaait  ol,  or  a  sight  seen  by  the 
rational  soul,  gone  out  for  an  excursion  while  the  sensi- 


»  Grimm,  <  D.  M.'  p.  1038. 


ANIMISM. 


443 


t  soul  should 
1  iis  uiio  of  a 
T.     The  king 
thful  hench- 
e  issue  from 
it  could  not 
ater,  and  the 
ifter  a  while 
the  sleeping 
that  he  went 
I«U     This  is 
for  us,  as  in 
ition  of  our 
minds  have 
still  remain 
).     A  Karen 
J  story;  the 
^''hich  he  '^x- 
ing  thi-t..,ds 
the  idea  of 
1  the  theory 
eper's  soul, 
sfs  so  often 


of  several 
logy.  An- 
uman  souls 
les  Liiem  as 
3ompatible. 
he  alterna- 
m  the  soul 
een  by  the 

the  sensi- 


tive soul  remains  in  the  body.^  So  the  Zulu  may  be  visited 
in  a  dream  by  the  shade  of  an  ancestor,  the  itongo,  who 
comes  to  warn  him  of  danger,  or  he  may  himself  be  taken 
by  the  itongo  in  a  dream  to  visit  his  distant  people,  and  see 
that  they  are  in  trouble ;  as  for  the  man  who  is  passing  into 
the  morbid  condition  of  the  professional  seer,  phantoms  are 
continually  coming  to  talk  to  him  in  his  sleep,  tillhebecomes, 
as  the  expressive  native  phrase  is,  '  a  house  of  dreams.'  '^ 
In  the  lower  range  of  culture,  it  is  perhaps  most  frequently 
taken  for  gi-anted  that  a  man's  apparition  in  a  dream  is  a 
visit  from  his  disembodied  spirit,  which  the  dreamer,  to  use 
an  expressive  Ojibwa  idiom,  '  sees  when  asleep.'  Such  a 
thought  comes  out  clearly  in  tli  Fijian  opinion  that  a  living 
man's  spirit  may  leave  the  body,  to  trouble  other  people  in 
heir  sleep  ;  '  or  in  a  recent  account  of  an  old  Indian  woman 
of  British  Columbia  sending  for  the  medicine-man  to  drive 
away  the  dead  people  who  came  to  her  every  night.*  A 
modern  observer's  description  of  the  state  of  mind  of  the 
negroes  of  South  Guinea  in  this  respect  is  extremely  charac- 
teristic a  1 1  instructive.  '  All  their  dreams  are  construed 
into  visits  from  the  spirits  of  their  deceased  friends.  The 
<  '  ions,  hints,  and  warnings  which  come  to  them  through 
this  source,  are  received  with  the  most  serious  and  deferential 
attention  nd  are  always  acted  upon  in  their  waking  hours. 
The  habit  of  r^'lating  their  dreams,  which  is  universal, 
greatly  promotes  the  habit  of  dreaming  itself,  and  hence 
their  sleeping  hours  are  characterized  by  almost  as  much 
intercourse  with  the  dead  as  their  waking  are  with  the 
living.  This  is,  no  doubt,  one  of  the  reasons  of  their  exces- 
sive superstitiousness.  Their  imaginations  become  so  lively 
that  they  can  scarcely  distinguish  between  their  dreams  and 
their  waking  thoughts,  between  the  real  and  the  ideal,  and 

'  Charlevoix,  '  Nouvello  Franco,'  vol.  vi.  p.  78 ;  Loskiel,  part  i.  p.  76 ; 
Sproat,  '  Savage  Life,'  p.  172. 

''  Callaway,  'Relig.  of  Amazulu,' pp.  228,  260,  316;  'Journ.  Anthrop. 
Inst.'  vol.  i.  p.  170.    See  also  Si.  John,  '  Far  East,'  vol.  i.  p.  19lt  (Dayaks). 

^  Williams,  '  Fiji,'  vol.  i.  p.  242. 

*  Mayne,  'Brit.  Columbia,'  p.  261 ;  see  Sproat,  1.  c. 


444 


ANIMISM. 


i    ■• 

: ! 


thoy  consequently  utter  falsehood  without  intending,  and 
profess  to  see  things  which  never  existed.'  ' 

To  the  Greek  of  old,  the  dream-Houl  was  what  to  the 
modern  savage  it  still  is.  Sleep,  loosing  cares  of  mind,  fell 
on  Achilles  as  ho  lay  by  the  sounding  sea,  and  there  stood 
over  him  the  soul  of  Patroklos,  like  to  him  altogether  in 
stature,  and  the  beauteous  eyes,  and  the  voice,  and  the  gar- 
ments that  wrapped  his  skin ;  he  spake,  and  Achilles 
stretched  out  to  grasp  him  with  loving  hands,  but  caught 
him  not,  and  like  a  smoke  the  soul  sped  twittering  below 
the  earth.  Along  the  ages  that  separate  us  from  Homeric 
times,  the  apparition  in  dreams  of  men  living  or  dead  has 
been  a  subject  of  philosophic  speculation  and  of  superstitious 
fear.'^  Both  the  phantom  of  the  living  and  the  ghost  of 
the  dead  figure  in  Cicero's  typical  tale.  Two  Arcadians 
came  to  Megara  together,  one  lodged  at  a  friend's  house,  the 
other  at  an  inn.  In  the  night  this  latter  appeared  to  his 
fellow-traveller,  imploring  his  help,  for  the  innkeeper  was 
plotting  his  death  ;  the  sleeper  sprang  up  in  alarm,  but 
thinking  the  vision  of  no  consequence  went  to  sleep  again. 
Then  a  second  time  his  companion  appeared  to  him,  to 
entreat  that  though  he  had  failed  to  help,  he  would  at  least 
avenge,  for  the  innkeeper  had  killed  him  and  hidden  his 
body  in  a  dung-cart,  wherefore  he  charged  his  fellow- 
traveller  to  be  early  next  morning  at  the  city-gate  before 
the  cait  passed  out.  Struck  with  this  second  dream,  the 
traveller  went  as  bidden,  and  there  found  the  cart;  the 
body  of  the  murdered  man  was  in  it,  and  the  innkeeper 
was  brought  to  justice.  '  Quid  hoc  somnio  dici  potest 
divinius  ? '  ^  Augustine  discusses  with  reference  to  the 
nature  of  the  soul  various  dream-stories  of  his  time,  where 
the  apparitions  of  men  dead  or  living  are  seen  in  dreams. 

*  J.  L.  Wilson,  'W.  Africa,'  p.  395,  see  210.  See  also  Ellis,  '  Polyn.  Res.' 
vol.  i.  p.  396  ;  J.  G.  Miillor,  '  Amer.  Urrol.'  p.  287  ;  Buchanan,  '  Mysore,'  in 
Pinkerton,  vol.  viii.  p.  677  ;  '  Early  Hist,  of  Mankind,'  p.  8. 

"  Homer.  II.  xxiii.  59.  See  also  Odyss.  xi.  207,  222  ;  Porphyr.  De  Antro 
Nympharum ;  Virgil.  iEn.  ii.  794  ;  Ovid.  Fast.  v.  475. 

'■'  Cicero  De  Divinatione,  i.  27. 


tending,  and 

what  to  the 
of  mind,  fell 
[  there  stood 
iltogether  in 
and  the  gar- 
md  Achilles 
i,  but  caught 
loring  below 
3m  Homeric 

or  dead  has 
superstitious 
the  ghost  of 
0  Arcadians 
's  house,  the 
eared  to  his 
ikoeper  was 

alarm,  but 
sleep  again. 

to  him,  to 
)uld  at  least 

hidden  his 

his  fellow- 
gate  before 

dream,  the 
e  cart;  the 
innkeeper 

dici  potest 
nee  to  the 
time,  where 

in  dreams. 

'  Polyn.  Ees.' 
1,  '  Mysore,'  in 

hyr.  De  Antro 


ANIMISM. 


445 


In  one  of  the  latter  he  himself  figured,  for  when  a  disciple 
of  his,  EulogiuB  the  rhetor  of  Carthage,  once  could  not  get 
to  sleep  for  thinking  of  an  obscure  passage  in  Cicero's 
Rhetoric,  that  night  Augustine  came  to  him  in  a  dream  and 
explained  it.  But  Augustine's  tendency  was  toward  the 
modern  theory  of  dreams,  and  in  this  case  he  says  it  was 
certainly  his  image  that  appeared,  not  himself,  who  was  far 
across  the  sea,  neither  knowing  nor  caring  about  the  matter.^ 
As  we  survey  the  immense  series  of  dieam-stories  of  similar 
types  in  patristic,  medireval,  and  modem  literature,  we  may 
find  it  difficult  enough  to  decide  which  are  truth  and  whioli 
are  fictioa.  But  along  the  course  of  these  myriad  naiTa- 
tives  of  human  phantoms  appearing  in  dreams  to  cheer  or 
torment,  to  warn  or  inform,  or  to  demand  fulfilment  of  their 
own  desires,  the  problem  of  dream- apparitions  may  be  traced 
in  progress  of  gradual  determination,  from  the  earlier  con- 
viction that  a  disembodied  soul  really  comes  into  the  presence 
of  the  sleeper,  toward  the  later  opinion  that  such  a  phantasm 
is  produced  in  the  dreamer's  mind  without  the  perception  of 
any  external  objective  figure. 

The  evidence  of  visions  corresponds  with  the  evidence  of 
dreams  in  their  bearing  on  primitive  theories  of  the  sowl,'-^ 
and  the  two  classes  of  phenomena  substantiate  and  supple- 
ment one  another.  Even  in  healthy  waking  life,  the  savage 
or  barbarian  has  never  learnt  to  make  that  rigid  distinction 
between  subjective  and  objective,  between  imagination  and 
reality,  to  enforce  which  is  one  of  the  main  results  of 
scientific  education.  Still  less,  when  disordered  in  body  and 
mind  he  sees  around  him  phantom  human  forms,  can  he  dis- 
trust the  evidence  of  his  very  senses.  Thus  it  comes  to 
pass  that  throughout  the  lower  civilization  men  believe,  with 
the  most  vivid  and  intense  belief,  in  the  objective  reality  of 
the  human  spectres  which  they  see  in  sickness,  exhaustion,  or 
excitement.  As  will  be  hereafter  noticed,  one  main  reason 
of  the  practices  of  fasting,  penance,  narcotising  by  drugs,  and 

•  Augustin.  De  Curil  pro  Mortuis,  x.-xii.  Epist.  clviii. 

-  Compare  Voltaire's  remarks,  'Diet.  Phil.'  art.  'ame,'  &c. 


446 


ANIMISM. 


li'f  '' 

•^  hi 


I        4 

r 


other  means  of  bringing  on  morbid  exaltation,  is  that  the 
patients  may  obtain  the  sight  of  spectral  beings,  from  whom 
they  look  to  gain  spiritual  knowledge  and  even  worldly  power. 
Human  ghosts  are  among  the  principal  of  these  phantasmal 
figures.  There  ip  no  doubt  that  honest  visionaries  describe 
ghosts  as  they  really  appear  to  their  perception,  while  even  the 
impostors  who  pretend  to  see  them  conform  to  the  descrip- 
tions thus  established ;  thus,  in  West  Africa,  a  man's  kla  or 
soul,  becoming  at  his  death  a  siaa  or  ghost,  can  remain  in  the 
house  with  the  corpse,  but  is  only  visible  to  the  wong-man, 
the  spirit-doctor.^  Sometimes  the  phantom  has  the  charac- 
teristic quality  of  not  being  visible  to  all  of  an  assembled 
company.  Thus  the  natives  of  the  Antilles  believed  that 
the  dead  appeared  on  the  roads  when  one  went  alone,  but 
not  when  many  went  together  ;  ^  thus  among  the  ¥inns  the 
ghosts  of  the  dead  were  to  be  seen  by  the  shamans,  but  not 
by  men  generally  unless  in  dreams.^  Such  is  perhaps  the 
meaning  of  the  description  of  Samuel's  ghost,  visible  to 
the  witch  of  Endor,  but  not  to  Saul,  for  he  has  to  ask  her 
what  it  is  she  sees.*  Yet  this  test  of  the  nature  of  an 
apparition  is  one  which  easily  breaks  down.  We  know  well 
how  in  civilized  countries  a  current  rumour  of  some  one 
having  seen  a  phantom  is  enough  to  bring  a  sight  of  it  to 
others  whose  minds  are  in  a  properly  receptive  state.  Th»i' 
condition  of  the  modern  ghost-seer,  whose  imagination 
passes  on  such  slight  excitement  into  positive  haUucination, 
is  rather  the  rule  than  the  exception  among  uncultured  and' 
intensely  imaginative  trib«?s,  whose  minds  may  be  thrown  off 
their  balance  by  a  touch,  a  word,  a  gesture,  an  unaccustomed 
noise?  Among  savage  tribes,  however,  as  among  civilized 
:.aces  who  have  inherited  remains  of  early  philosophy  formed! 
under  similar  conditions,  the  doctrine  of  visibility  or  iil- 


*  Steinliauser,  '  Religion  des  Negers,'  in  '  Magazin  der  Evang.  Missionen,' 
Basel,  1856,  No.  2,  p.  135. 

"  '  Historie  del  S.  D.  Fernando  Colombo,*  tr.  Alfonso  Ulloa,  Venice,  1571, 
p.  127,  £ng.  Tr.  in  Pinkorton,  vol.  xii.  p.  80. 
3  Gastrin,  '  Finn.  Myth.'  p.  120. 

*  I.  Sam.  xxviii.  12. 


I 


ANIMISM. 


447 


L,  is  that  the 
from  whom 
rldly  power, 
phantasmal 
ries  describe 
lile  even  the 
the  descrip- 
man's  kla  or 
jmain  in  the 
wong-man, 
the  charac- 
1  assembled 
ilieved  that 
)  alone,  but 
le  Finns  the 
ms,  but  not 
perhaps  the 
,  visible  to 
to  ask  her 
liture  of  an 
know  well 
some  one 
ght  of  it  to 
state.    Thar 
nagination 
lucination, 
iltured  and* 
thrown  off 
iiccustomed 
g  civilized* 
)hy  formed 
lity  or  iil- 

j.  Missionen,' 
Venice,  1571, 


visibility  of  phantoms  has  been  obviously  shaped  wiUi 
reference  to  actual  experience.  To  declare  that  souls  or^.' 
ghosts  are  necessarily  either  visible  or  invisible,  would 
dii'ectly  contradict  the  evidence  of  men's  senses.  But  to 
assert  or  imply,  as  the  lower  races  do,  that  they  aye  visible 
sometimes  and  to  some  persons,  but  not  always  or  to  every' 
one,  is  to  lay  down  an  explanation  of  facts  which  is  noifa^ 
indeed  our  usual  modern  explanation,  but  which  is  a  pw- 
fectly  rational  and  intelligible  product  of  early  science. 

Without  discussing  on  their  merits  the  accounts  of  what 
is  called  '  second  sight,'  it  may  be  pointed  out  that  they  are 
related  among  savage  tribes,  as  when  Captain  Jonathan 
Carver  obtained  from  a  Cree  medicine-man  a  true  prophecy 
of  the  arrival  of  a  canoe  with  news  next  day  at  noon ;  or 
when  Mr.  J.  Mason  Brown,  travelling  with  two  voyageurs 
on  the  Coppermine  River,  was  met  by  Indians  of  the  very 
band  he  was  seeking,  these  having  been  sent  by  their 
medicine-man,  who,  on  enquiry,  stated  that '  He  saw  them 
coming,  and  heard  them  talk  on  their  journey.'^  These  are 
analogous  to  accounts  of  the  Highland  second-sight,  as  when 
Permant  heard  of  a  gentleman  of  the  Hebrides,  said  to  have 
the  convenient  gift  of  foreseeing  visitors  in  time  to  get  ready 
for  them,  or  when  Dr.  Johnson  was  told  by  another  laird 
that  a  labouring  man  of  his  had  predicted  his  return  to  the 
island,  and  described  the  peculiar  livery  his  servant  had 
been  newly  dressed  in.^ 

As  a  general  rule,  people  are  apt  to  consider  it  impossible 
for  a  man  to  be  in  two  places  at  once,  and  indeed  a  saying 
to  that  effect  has  become  a  popular  saw.  But  the  rule  is  so 
far  from  being  universally  accepted,  that  the  word  '  biloca- 
tion '  has  been  invented  to  express  the  miraculous  faculty 
possessed  by  certain  Saints  of  the  Roman  Church,  of  being 
in  two  places  at  once ;  like  St.  Alfonso  d*  Liguori,  who  had 
the  useful  power  of  preaching  his  sermon  in  church  while 

*  Brinton,  '  Myths  of  New  World,'  p.  269. 

"  Pennant,  '  2nd  Tour  in  Scotland,'  in  Finkerton,  vol.  iii.  p.  315 ;  Johnson, 
'  Journey  to  the  Hebrides.* 


14 


448 


ANIMISM. 


H 


ir. 


ft 


:»1 


!  I 

1» 


he  was  confessing  penitents  at  home.^  The  reception  and 
explanation  of  these  various  classes  of  stories  fit  perfectly 
with  the  primitive  animistic  theoiy  of  apparitions,  and  the 
same  is  true  of  the  following  most  numerous  class  of  ttee 
second-sight  narratiws. 

Death  is  the  event  which,  in  all  stages  of  culture,  brings 
thought  to  bear  most  intensely,  though  not  always  most 
healthily,  on  the  problems  of  psychology.  The  apparition 
of  the  disembodied  soul  has  in  all  ages  been  thought  to  bear 
especial  relation  to  its  departure  from  its  body  at  death. 
This  is  well  shown  by  the  reception  not  only  of  a  theory  of 
ghotts,  but  of  a  special  doctrine  of  '  wraiths '  or  '  fetches/ 
Thus  the  Karens  say  that  a  man's  spirit,  appearing  after 
death,  may  thus  announce  it.^  In  New  Zealand  it  is  ominous 
to  see  the  figure  of  an  absent  person,  for  if  it  be  shadowy 
and  the  face  not  visible,  his  death  may  ere  long  be  expected, 
but  if  the  face  be  seen  he  is  dead  already.  A  party  of 
Maoris  (one  of  whom  told  the  story)  were  seated  round  a 
fire  in  the  open  air,  when  there  appeared,  seen  only  by  two 
of  them,  the  figure  of  a  relative  left  ill  at  home ;  they 
exclaimed,  the  figure  vanished,  and  on  the  return  of  the  party 
it  appeared  that  the  sick  man  had  died  about  the  time  of  the 
vision.^'  Examining  the  position  of  the  doctrine  of  wraiths 
among  the  higher  races,  we  find  it  especially  prominent  ifi 
three  intellectual  districts,  Christian  hagiology,populai"  folk- 
lore, and  modern  spiritualisia.  St.  Anthony  saw  the  soul  of 
St.  Ammonius  carried  to  heaven  in  the  midst  of  choirs  of 
angels,  the  same  day  that  the  holy  hermit  died  five  days' 
journey  off  in  the  desert  of  Nitria;  when  St.  Ambrose  died 
on  Easter  Eve,  several  newly-baptized  children  saw  the  holy 
bishop,  and  pointed  him  out  to  their  parents,  but  these  with 
their  less  pure  ej'es  could  not  behold  him ;  and  so  forth.* 

'  J.  Gardner,    Fai>,?iS  of  the  World,'  s.  v,  '  bilocation.' 

»  Mason,  'Karens,'  1.  c.  p.  108. 

3  Shortland,  •  Tnids.  of  Now  Zealand,'  p.  140  ;  Polack, '  M.  and  C.  of  New 
Zcalanders,'  vol.  i.  p.  268.  See  also  Ellis,  '  Madagascar,'  vol.  i.  p.  393  ;  J.  G. 
Miiller,  p.  261. 

*  Calmet,  '  Diss,  sur  los  Esprita,'  vol.  i.  cli.  xl. 


ANIMISM. 


449 


iceptiou  and' 

fit  perfectly 

ODs,  and  the 

class  of  tbe 

ture,  brings 
Iways  most 
3  apparition 
ught  to  bear 
ly  at  death, 

■  a  theory  of 
or  'fetches.' 
3a,ring  after 
t  is  ominous 
be  shadowy 
be  expected, 
A  party  of 
ed  round  a 
)nly  by  two 
Lome ;  they 
of  the  party 
time  of  the 

of  wraittis 
ominent  ifi 
)pulai'  folk>- 

■  the  soul  of 
)f  choirs  of 

five  days' 
ibrose  died 
w  the  holy 
these  with 

so  forth.* 


Folk-lore  examples  abound  in  Silesia  and  the  Tyrol,  where 
the  gift  of  wraith-seeing  still  flourishes,  with  the  customary 
details  of  funerals,  churches,  four-cross-roads,  and  headless 
phantoms,  and  an  especial  association  with  New  Year's  Eve. 
The  accounts  of  *  second-sight '  from  North  Britain  mostly 
belong  to  a  somewhat  older  date.  Thus  the  St.  Kilda  people 
used  to  be  haunted  by  their  own  spectral  doubles,  fore- 
runners of  impending  death,  and  in  17!)9  a  traveller  writes 
of  the  peasants  of  Kircudbrightshire,  'It  is  common  among 
them  to  fancy  that  they  see  the  wraiths  of  persons  dying, 
which  will  be  visible  to  one  and  not  to  others  present  with 
him.  Within  these  last  twenty  years,  it  was  hardly  possible 
to  meet  with  any  person  who  had  not  seen  many  wraiths  and 
ghosts  in  the  course  of  his  experience.'  Those  who  discuss 
the  authenticity  of  the  second-sight  stories  as  actual 
evidence,  must  bear  in  mind  that  they  prove  a  little  too 
much  ;  they  vouch  no,'  only  for  hurian  apparitions,  but  for 
such  phantoms  as  demon-dogs,  and  for  still  more  fanciful 
symbolic  omens.  Thus  a  phantom  shroud  seen  in  spiritual 
vision  on  a  living  man  predicts  his  death,  immediate  if  it  is 
up  to  his  head,  less  nearly  approaching  if  it  is  only  up  to 
his  waist ;  and  to  see  in  spiritual  vision  a  spark  of  fire  fall 
upon  a  person's  arm  or  breast,  is  a  forerunner  of  a  dead 
child  to  be  seen  in  his  arms.^  As  visionaries  often  see 
phantoms  of  living  persons  without  any  reinarkablo  event 
coinciding  with  their  hallucinations,  it  is  naturally  admitted 
that  a  man's  phantom  or  'double'  may  be  seen  without 
portending  anything  i^  particular.  The  spiritualistic  theory 
specially  insists  on  cases  of  apparition  where  the  person's 
death  corresponds  more  or  less  nearly  with  the  time  when 
some  friend  perceives  his  phantom.^  Narratives  of  this  class, 
which  I  can  here  only  specify  without  arguing  on  them,  are 


nd  C.  of  New 
p.  393  ;  J.  G. 


>  Wuttke,  '  Volksaberglaube,'  pp.  44,  56,  208  ;  Brand,  '  Popular  Antiqui- 
ties,' vol.  iii.  pp.  1.55,  235  ;  Johnson,  'Journey  to  the  Hebrides  ;'  Martin, 
'Western  Islands  of  Scotland,'  in  Pinkerton,  vol.  iii.  p.  670. 

'  See  R.  D.  Owen,  '  Footfalls  on  the  Boundary  of  another  World  ; '  Mrs. 
Crowe,  '  Night-Side  of  Nature  ; '  Hewitt's  Tr.  of  Enneuioser's  '  Magic,'  ic. 

VOL.  I.  G  g 


450 


ANIMISM. 


I  i 

: ! 


abundantly  in  circulation.  Thus,  I  have  an  account  by  a 
lady,  who  '  saw,  as  it  were,  the  form  of  some  one  laid  out,' 
near  the  time  when  a  brother  died  at  Melbourne,  and  who 
mentions  another  lady  known  to  her,  who  thought  she  saw 
her  own  father  look  in  at  the  church  window  at  the  moment 
he  was  dying  in  his  own  house.  Another  account  is  sent  me 
by  a  Shetland  lady,  who  relates  tiiat  about  twenty  years 
ago  she  and  a  girl  leading  her  pony  recognized  the  familiar 
figure  of  one  Peter  Sutherland,  whom  they  knew  to  be  at 
the  time  in  ill-health  in  Edinburgh ;  he  turned  a  cornei  and 
they  saw  no  more  of  him,  but  next  week  came  the  news  of 
his  sudden  death. 

That  the  apparitional  human  soul  bears  the  likeness  of  its 
fleshly  body,  is  the  principle  implicitly  accepted  by  all  who 
believe  it  really  and  objectively  present  in  dreams  and 
visions.  My  own  view  is  that  nothing  but  dreams  and 
visions  could  have  ever  put  into  men's  minds  such  an  idea 
as  that  of  souls  being  ethereal  images  of  bodies.  It  is  thus 
habitually  taken  for  granted  in  animistic  philosophy,  savage 
or  civilized,  that  souls  set  free  from  the  earthly  body  are 
recognized  by  a  likeness  to  it  which  they  still  retain,  whether 
as  ghostly  wanderers  on  earth  or  inhabitants  of  the  world 
beyond  the  grave.  Man's  spirit,  says  Swedenborg,  is  his 
mind,  which  Uvea  after  death  in  complete  human  form,  and 
this  is  the  poet's  dictum  in  '  In  Memoriam  : ' 

'  Eternal  form  shall  still  divide 
The  eternal  soul  from  all  beside ; 

And  I  shall  know  him  when  we  meet.' 

This  world-wide  thought,  coming  into  view  here  in  a  multi- 
tuue  of  cases  from  all  grades  of  culture,  needs  no  collection 
0£  ordinary  instances  to  illustrate  it.^  But  a  quaint  and 
special  group  of  beliefs  will  serve  to  display  the  thorough- 


'  The  conception  of  the  soul  as  a  small  liuman  image  is  found  in  various 
districts  ;  see  Eyro,  '  Australia,'  vol.  ii.  p.  356  ;  St.  .Tolin,  '  Far  East,'  vol.  i. 
p.  189  (Dayaks) ;  Waitz,  vol.  iii.  p.  l',)4  (N.  A.  Ind.).  The  idea  of  a  soul  as 
a  sort  of  '  thumbling'  is  familjj>i  to  the  Hindus  and  to  German  folk-lore  ; 
compare  the  representations  of  tmy  souls  in  mediaeval  clotures. 


count  by  a 
le  laid  out,' 
e,  and  who 
;ht  she  saw 
,he  moment 
t  is  sent  me 
enty  years 
the  familiar 
;w  to  be  at 
,  cornei  and 
the  news  «of 


ieness  of  its 
.  by  all  vv  ho 
dreams  and 
dreams  and 
mch  an  idea 
.     It  is  thus 
)phy,  savage 
ily  body  are 
ain,  whether 
the  world 
borg,  is  his 
,n  form,  and 


in  a  tnulti- 
o  collection 
quaint  and 
thorough- 

un'l  iu  various 
ir  East,'  vol.  i. 
ea  of  a  soul  as 
nan  folk-lore  ; 
res. 


ANIMISM. 


451 


ness  with  which  the  soul  is  thus  conceived  as  an  image  of 
the  body.    As  a  consistent  corollary  to  such  an  opinion,  it 
is  argued  that  the  mutilation  of  the  body  will  have  a  cor- 
responding effect  upon  the  soul,  and  very  low  savage  races 
have  philosophy  enough  to  work  out  this  idea.    Thus  it 
was  recorded  of  the  Indians  of  Brazil  by  one  of  the  early 
European  visitors,  that  they  '  believe  that  the  dead  arrive 
in  the  other  world  wounded  or  hacked  to  pieces,  in  fact  just 
as  they  left  this.^     Thus,  too,  the  Australian  who  has  slain 
his  enemy  will  cut  off  the  right  thumb  of  the  corpse,  so  that 
although  the  spirit  will  become  a  hostile  ghost,  it  cannot 
throw  with  its  mutilated  hand  the  shadowy  spear,  and  may 
be  safely  left  to  wander,  malignant   but  harmless.-     The 
negro  fears  long  sickness  before  deatti,  such  as  will  send 
him  lean  and  feeble  into  the  next  world.     His  theory  of  the 
mutilation  of  soul  with  body  could  not  be  brought  more 
vividly  into  view  than  in  that  ugly  story  of  the  West  India 
planter,  whoso  slaves  began  to  seek  in  suicide  at  once  relief 
from  present  misery  and  restoration  to  their  native  land ; 
but  the  white  man  was  too  cunning  for  them,  he  cut  off  the 
heads  and  hands  of  the  corpses,  and  the  survivors  saw  that 
not  even  death  could  save  them  from  a  master  who  could 
maim  their  very  souls  in  the  next  world. ^     The  same  rude 
and  primitive   belief  continues  among  nati'^is   risen   far 
higher  in  intellectual  rank.     The  Chinese  hold  in  especial 
horror  the  punishment  of  decapitation,  considering  that  he 
who  quits  this  world  lacking  a  member  will  so  arrive  in  the 
next,  and  a  case  is  recorded  lately  of  a  criminal  at  Amoy 
who  for  this  reason  begged  to  die  instead  by  the  cruel  death 
of  crucifixion,  and  was  crucified  accordingly.^     The  series 
ends  as  usual  in  the  folk-lore  of  the  civilized  world.     The 
phantom  skeleton  in   chains   that  haunted  the   house  at 


*  'tfagalhanea  de  Gandavo,  p.  110  ;  Mafifei,  'Indie  Orientali,'  p.  107. 
»  Oldfield  in  '  Tr.  Eth.  See'  vol.  iii.  p.  287. 

^  Waitz,  vol.  ii.  p.  I'.t4  ;  Kilmer,  '  Guinea,'  p.  42. 

*  Meiners,  vol.  ii.  pp.  756,  7*53  ;  Purchas,  vol.  iii.  p.  405  ;  J.  Jones  in  'Tr. 
Eth.Soc'  vol.  iii.  p.  138. 

Gg  2 


\ 


R 


f  ! 


m 


t 

IS 


■it 


0 


/ 


/ 


/ 


452 


ANIMISM. 


Bologna,  showed  the  way  to  the  garden  where  was  buried 
the  real  chained  fleshless  skeleton  it  belonged  to,  and  came 
no  more  when  the  remains  had  been  duly  buried.  When 
the  Earl  of  Cornwall  met  the  fetch  of  hia  friend  William 
Rufus  carried  black  and  naked  on  a  black  goat  across  the 
Bodmin  moors,  he  saw  that  it  was  wounded  through  the 
midst  of  the  breast ;  and  afterwards  he  heard  that  at  that 
very  hour  the  king  had  been  slain  in  the  New  Forest  by  the 
arrow  of  Walter  Tirell.^ 

In  studying  the  nature  of  the  soul  as  conceived  among 
the  lower  races,  and  in  tracing  such  conceptions  onward 
among  the  higher,  circumstantial  details  are  available.  It 
is  as  widely  recognized  among  mankind  that  souls  or  jr hosts 
have  voices,  as  that  they  have  visible  forms,  and  indeed  the 
evidence  for  both  is  of  the  same  nature.  Men  who  perceive 
evidently  that  souls  do  talk  when  they  present  themselves 
in  dream  or  vision,  naturally  take  for  granted  at  once  the 
objective  reality  of  the  ghostly  voice,  and  of  the  ghostly 
form  from  which  it  proceeds.  This  is  involved  in  the  series 
of  narratives  of  spiritual  communications  with  living  men, 
from  savagery  onward  to  civilization,  while  the  more  modeili 
doctrine  of  the  subjectivity  of  such  phenomena  recognizes 
the  phenomena  themselves,  but  offers  a  different  explana- 
tion of  them:  One  special  conception,  however,  requires 
particular  notice.  This  defines  the  spirit-voice  as  being 
a  low  murmur,  chirp,  or  whistle,  as  it  were  the  ghost  of 
a  voice.  The  Algonquin  Indians  of  North  America  could 
hear  the  shadow-souls  of  the  dead  chirp  like  crickets.^ 
The  divine  spirits  of  the  New  Zealand  dead,  coming  to 
converse  with  the  living,  utter  their  words  in  whistling 
tonee,  and  such  utterances  by  a  squeaking  noise  are  men- 
tioned elsewhere  in  Polynesia.^    The  Zulu  diviner's  familiar 


*  Calmct,  vol.  i.  ch.  xxxvi ;  Piin.  Ep.  vii.  2"  ;  Hunt,  '  Pop.  Romances,'  vol. 
ii.  p.  156. 

''  Le  Jeune  in  '  Kel.  des  J&uites,'  1639,  p.  43  ;  see  1684,  p.  13. 

'  Shortland,  'Trads.  of  N.  Z.'  p.  92  ;  Yate,  p.  140 ;  R.  Taylor,  pp.  104, 
153  ;  Ellis,  '  Polyn.  Res.'  vol.  i.  p.  406. 


e  was  buried 
to,  and  came 
iried.  When 
lend  William 
at  across  the 
through  the 
I  that  at  that 
Forest  by  the 

jeived  among 
tions  onward 
ivailable.     It 
Duls  or  whosts 
ad  indeed  the 
who  perceive 
at  themselves 
i  at  once  the 
f  the  ghostly 
i  in  the  series 
h  living  men, 
more  moderti 
aa  recognizes 
•ent  explana- 
ver,  requires 
)ice  as  being 
;he  ghost  of 
merica  could 
ce  crickets.^ 
coming  to 
in  whistling 
lise  are  men- 
ner's  familiar 

.  Romances,'  vol. 

p.  13. 

Taylor,  pp.  10  i. 


ANIMISM. 


459 


spirits  are  ancestral  manes,  who  talk  in  a  low  whistling 
tone  short  of  a  full  whistle,  whence  they  have  their  name 
of  'imilozi'  or  whistlers.^  These  ideas  correspond  with 
classic  descriptions  of  the  ghostly  voice,  as  a  '  twitter ' 
or  '  thin  murmur : ' 

'^v)(fj  fie  Kara  xOovos  rjvTf  Kanvos, 
wxtTo  TerpiyDta.* '•' 

'  Umbra  cruenta  Remi  visa  est  assistere  lecto, 
Atque  haec  exiguo  murmure  verba  loqui.'* 

As  the  attributes  of  the  soul  or  ghost  extend  to  other 
spiritual  beings,  and  the  utterances  of  such  are  to  a  great 
extent  given  by  the  voice  of  mediums,  we  connect  these 
accounts  with  the  notion  that  the  language  of  demons  is 
also  a  low  whistle  or  mutter,  whence  the  well-known  practice 
of  whispering  or  murmuring  charms,  the  '  susurrus  necro- 
manticus '  of  sorcerers,  to  whom  the  already  cited  descrip- 
tion of  '  wizards  that  peep  (i.  e.  chirp)  and  mutter '  is 
widely  applicable.* 

The  conception  of  dreams  and  visions  as  caused  by 
present  objective  figures,  and  the  identification  of  such 
phantom  souls  with  the  shadow  and  the  breath,  has  led 
to  the  treatment  of  souls  as  substantial  material  beings. 
Thus  it  is  a  usual  proceeding  to  make  openings  through 
solid  materials  to  allow  souls  to  pass.  The  Iroquois  in 
old  times  used  to  leave  an  opening  in  the  grave  for  the 
lingering  soul  to  visit  its  body,  and  some  of  them  still 

>  Callaway,  » Eel.  of  Amazulu,'  pp.  265,  348,  370. 

3  Homer,  II.  xxiii.  100. 

»  Ovid,  Fast.  v.  457. 

*  Isaiah  viii.  19  ;  xxix.  4.  The  Arabs  hate  whistling  (el  sifr),  it  is  talking 
to  devils  (Burton,  'First  Footsteps  in  E.-si  Africa,'  p.  142).  '  Nicolaus  Remi- 
gius,  whose ' '  Daemonolatreia  "  is  one  of  tho  ghastliest  volumes  in  the  ghastly 
literature  of  witchcraft,  cites  Hermolaus  Barbarus  as  having  heard  the  voice 
s-ub-sibilantis  daemouis,  and,  after  giving  other  instances,  adduces  the  autho- 
rity of  Psellus  to  prove  that  the  devils  generally  speak  very  low  and  con- 
fusedly in  order  not  to  be  caught  fibbing,'  Dr.  Sebastian  Evans  in  'Nature,' 
June  22,  1871,  p.  140.  (Nicolai  Remigii  Daemonolatreia,  Col.  Agripp.  1596, 
lib.  i.  c.  8,  '  plei  •  que  aliae  vocem  illis  esse  aiunt  qualom  emittunt  qui  os 
in  dolium  aut  restam  rimoaam  insertum  habent ' — 'ut  Daemones  e  pelvi 
striduia  voce  ac  tenui  sibilo  verba  ederent '). 


>-f 


fmh 


',%. 


454 


ANIMISM. 


K.!'..f 


bore  holes  in  the  coffin  for  the  same  pui-pose.^  The  Mala- 
gasy sorcerer,  for  the  cure  of  a  sick  man  who  had  lost  his 
soul,  would  make  a  hole  in  the  burial-house  to  let  out  a 
spirit,  which  he  would  catch  in  his  cap  and  so  convey  to 
the  patient's  head.''^  The  Chinese  make  a  hole  in  the  roof 
to  let  out  the  soul  at  death.^  And  lastly,  the  custom 
of  opening  a  window  or  door  for  the  departing  soul  when 
it  quits  the  body  is  to  this  day  a  very  familiar  superstition 
in  France,  Germany,  and  England.*  Again,  the  souls  of 
the  dead  are  thought  susceptible  of  being  beaten,  hurt, 
and  driven  like  any  other  living  creatures.  Thus  the 
Queensland  aborigines  would  beat  the  air  in  an  annual 
mock  fight,  held  to  scare  away  the  souls  that  death  had 
let  loose  among  the  living  since  last  year.^  Thus  North 
American  Indians,  when  they  had  tortured  an  enemy  to 
aoatn,  ran  about  crying  and  beating  with  sticks  to  scare 
the  ghost  away ;  they  have  been  known  to  set  nets  round 
their  cabins  to  catch  and  keep  out  neighbours'  departed 
souls ;  fancying  the  soul  of  a  dying  man  to  go  out  at  the 
wigwam  roof,  they  would  habitually  beat  the  sides  with 
sticks  to  drive  it  forth ;  we  even  hear  of  the  widow  going 
off  from  her  husband's  funeral  followed  by  a  person  flourish- 
ing a  handful  of  twigs  about  her  head  like  a  fly  flapper,  to 
drive  off  her  husband's  ghost  and  leave  her  free  to  marry 
again.^  With  a  kindlier  feeling,  the  Congo  negroes  ab- 
stained for  a  whole  year  after  a  death  from  sweeping  the 
house,  lest  the  dust  should  injure  the  delicate  substance  of 
the  ghost ; ''  the  Tonquinese  avoided  house-cleaning  during 
the  festival  when  the  souls  of  the  dead  came  back  to  their 


'  Morgan,  '  Iroquois,'  p.  176. 
'  Flacourt,  '  Madagascar,' p.  101. 
'  Bastian,  '  Psychologie,'  p.  15. 

*  Monnier,  'Traditions  Populaires,'  p.  142  ;  Wuttko,  '  Volksaberglaube,' 
p.  20!)  ;  Grimm,  '  D.  M.'  p.  801  ;  Meiners,  vol.  ii.  p.  761. 

*  Lang,  'Queensland,'  p.  441  ;  Bonwick,  'Tasmanians,'  p.  187. 

'  Charlevoix,  '  Nouvelle  France,'  vol.  vi.  pp.  76,  122  ;  Le  Jeune  in  '  Rel. 
de8Jesuites,'1634,  p.  23;  163!»,  p.44;  7  nner's  '  Narr.' p.  292  ;  Peter  Jones, 
'Hist,  of  Ojebway  Indians,"  p.  99. 

'  Bastian,  'Mensch,'  vol.  ii.  p.  323. 


The  Mala- 
lad  lost  his 
to  let  out  a 
io  convey  to 
in  the  roof 
the  custom 
J  soul  when 
superstition 
the  souls  of 
eaten,  hurt, 

Thus  the 

an  annual 
t  death  had 
Thus  North 
n  enemy  to 
jks  to  scare 

nets  round 
rs'  departed 
lO  out  at  the 

sides  with 
^idow  going 
on  flourish- 
y  flapper,  to 
36  to  marry 
negroes  ab- 
v^eeping  the 
ubstance  of 
ling  during 
ick  to  their 


ksaberglaube,' 

187. 

eune  in  '  Bel. 

;  Peter  Jones, 


ANIMISM. 


455 


houses  for  the  New  Year's  visit ;  ^  and  it  seems  likely  that 
the  special  profession  r^^  the  Roman  '  everriatores '  who 
swept  the  houses  out  after  i.  funeral,  was  connected  with  a 
similar  idea.'^  To  this  day,  it  remains  a  German  peasants' 
saying  that  it  is  wrong  to  slam  a  door,  lest  one  should  pinch 
a  soul  in  it.^  The  not  uncommon  practice  of  strewing 
ashes  to  show  the  footprints  of  ghosts  or  demons  takes  for 
granted  that  they  are  substantial  bodies.  In  the  litera- 
ture of  animism,  extreme  tests  of  the  weight  of  ghosts  are 
now  and  then  forthcoming.  They  range  from  the  declara- 
tion of  a  Basuto  diviner  that  the  late  queen  had  been 
bestriding  his  shoulders,  and  he  never  felt  such  a  weight 
in  his  life,  to  Glanvil's  story  of  David  Hunter  the  neat- 
herd, who  lifted  up  the  old  woman's  ghost,  and  she  felt 
just  like  a  bag  of  feathers  in  his  arms,  or  the  pathetic 
German  superstition  that  the  dead  mother's  coming  back 
in  the  night  to  suckle  the  baby  she  has  left  on  earth,  may 
be  known  by  the  hollow  pressed  down  in  the  bed  where 
she  lay,  and  at  last  down  to  the  alleged  modern  spiritualistic 
reckoning  of  the  weight  of  a  human  soul  at  from  3  to  4 
ounces.* 

Explicit  statements  as  to  the  substance  of  soul^are  to 
be  found  both  among  low  and  high  races,  i  x  an  instructive 
series  of  definitions.  The  Tongans  imagi^ibrl  the  human 
soul  to  be  the  finer  or  more  aeriform  part  of  the  body, 
which  leaves  it  suddenly  at  the  moment  of  death ;  some- 
thing comparable  to  the  perfume  and  essence  of  a  flower  as 
related  to  the  more  solid  vegetable  fibre.*  The  Greenland 
seers  described  the  soul  as  they  habitually-  perceived  it  in 
their  visions ;  it  is  pale  and  soft,  they  said,  and  he  who 
tries  to  seize  it  feels  nothing,  for  it  has  no  flesh  nor  bone 

'  Meiners,  vol.  i.  p.  318. 

'  Festus,  s.  V.  '  everriatores  ; '  see  Bastian,  1.  c,  and  cor  pare  Hartknoch, 
cited  below,  vol.  ii.  p.  40. 

^  Wuttke,  'Volksaberglaube,'  pp.  132,  216. 

*  Casalis,  'Basutos,'  p.  285  ;  Glanvil,  'Saducismus  Triumphatus,'  part  ii. 
p.  161  ;  Wuttke,  p.  216  ;  Bastian,  '  Psychologie,'  p.  192. 

^  Mariner,  '  Tonga  Is.'  vol.  ii.  p.  135. 


/ 


/ 


:  "  t 


M 


!! 
1 


456 


ANIMISM. 


nor  sinew.^  Tuo  oaribs  did  not  think  the  soul  imma- 
terial as  CO  be  invisible,  but  said  it  was  subtle  aD<  ii^^nlike 
a  purified  body.^  Turning  to  higher  races,  we  may  take 
the  Siamese  as  an  example  of  a  people  who  conceive  of 
souls  as  consisting  of  subtle  matter  escaping  sight  and 
touch,  or  as  united  to  a  swiftly  moving  aerial  body.^  In 
the  classic  world,  it  is  recorded  as  an  opinion  of  Epicurus 
that '  they  who  say  the  soul  is  incorporeal  talk  folly,  for  it 
could  neither  do  nor  suffer  anything  were  it  such.'  *  Among 
the  Fathers,  Irenseus  describes  souls  as  incorporeal  in  com- 
parison with  mortal  bodies,'  and  Tertullian  relates  a  vision 
or  revelation  of  a  certain  Montanist  prophetess,  of  the  soul 
seen  by  her  corporeally,  thin  and  lucid,  aerial  in  colour  and 
human  in  form.®  For  an  example  of  mediaeval  doctrine, 
may  be  cited  a  14th  century  English  poem,  the  '  Ayenbite 
of  Inwyt '  (i.  e.  '  Remorse  of  Conscience  ')  which  points 
out  how  the  soul,  by  reason  of  the  thinness  of  its  substance, 
suffers  all  the  more  in  purgatory  : 

'  Tlie  soul  is  more  tendre  and  nesche 
T'lMy  the  bodi  that  hath  bones  and  fleysche ; 
iiraisne  the  soul  that  is  so  tendere  of  kinde, 
Mot'j  nedis  hure  penaunce  hardere  y-finde, 
Than  eni  bodi  that  evere  on  live  was.'^ 

^he  doctrine  of  the  ethereal  soul  passed  on  into  more« 
modem  philosophy ^nd  the  European  peasant  holds  fast  to 
it  still ;  as  Wuttke  says,  the  ghosts  of  the  dead  have  to  him 
a  misty  and  evanescent  materiality,  for  they  have  bodies  as 
we  have,  though  of  other  kind :  they  can  eat  and  drink, 
they  can  be  wounded  and  killod.^    Nor  was  the  ancient 

'  Cianz, '  GrOnland,'  p.  257. 
^  Rochefort,  '  lies  Antilles,'  p.  429. 

^  Loubere, '  Siam,'  vol.  i.  p.  458  ;  Bastlan,  'Oestl.  Asien,'  vol.  iii.  p.  25!)  ; 
see  p.  278. 

♦  Diog.  Laert.  x.  67-8  ;  see  Serv.  ad  JEn.  iv.  654. 

^  Ireneeus  contra  Hseres.  v.  7,  1 ;  see  Origen,  De  Princip.  ii.  3,  2. 

«  TertuU.  De  Anima,  9. 

'  Hampole,  '  Ayenbite  of  Inwyt.' 

»  Wuttke,  '  Volksaberglaube,'  pp.  216,  226. 


ANIMISM. 


457 


ul  imraa- 
aD  '  1!  xnlike 
v^e  may  take 

conceive  of 
^  sight  and 
I  body.^    In 

of  Epicurus 
:  folly,  for  it 
ih.'*  Among 
)real  in  com- 
ates  a  vision 
1,  of  the  soul 
a  colour  and 
v&l  doctrine, 
e  *  Ayenbite 
rhich  points 
ts  substance, 


sche ; 
;inde, 
le, 


n  into  more- 
lolds  fast  to 
have  to  him 
ve  bodies  as 
and  drink, 
the  ancient 


vol.  iii.  p.  25!)  ; 
ii.  3,  2. 


of  ♦^      'umaik' 
vaporou* 
M  m  )    maiP 
oai  notioti 
meaning" 


doctrine  ever  more  distinctly  stated  than  by  a  modem 
spiritualistic  writer,  who  observes  that  'a  spirit  is  no 
immaterial  substance ;  on  the  contrary,  the  piritual 
organization  is  composed  of  matter  ....  u'  a  very  high 
state  of  refinement  and  atteiiuatif     '* 

Among  rude  races,  the  original  co  <i 
■onl  seems  to  have  been  that  of  eiu'-  ciai 
materiality,  which  has  held  so  larg 
thought  ever  since.  In  fact,  the  later  .  «ui»- 
of  immateriality  could  scarcely  have  conv»«\ 
to  a  savage.'  It  is  moreover  to  be  noticed  u.at,  as  to  the 
whole  nature  and  action  of  apparitional  souls,  ihe  lower 
philosophy  escapes  various  difficulties  which  down  to* 
modern  times  have  perplexed  metaphysicians  and  theolo- 
gians of  the  civilized  world.  Considering  the  thin  ethereal 
body  of  the  soul  to  be  itself  sufficient  and  suitable  for  visi- 
bility, movement,  and  speech,  the  primitive  animists  re- 
quired no  additional  hypotheses  to  account  for  these  mani- 
festations ;  they  had  no  place  for  theories  such  as  detailed 
by  Calmet,  as  that  immaterial  souls  have  their  own  vaporous 
bodies,  or  occasionally  have  such  vaporous  bodies  provided 
for  them  by  supernatural  means  to  enable  them  to  appear 
as  spectres,  or  that  they  possess  the  power  of  condensing 
the  circumambient  air  into  phantom-like  bodies  to  invest 
themselves  in,  or  of  forming  from  it  vocal  instruments.'^  It 
appears  to  have  been  within  systematic  schools  of  civilized 
philosophy  that  the  transcendental  definitions  of  the  imma- 
terial soul  were  obtained,  by  abstraction  from  the  primitive 
conception  of  the  ethereal-material  soul,  so  as  to  reduce  iti 
from  a  physical  to  a  metaphysical  entity. 

Departing  from  the  body  at  the  time  of  death,  the  soul 
or  spirit  is  considered  set  free  to  linger  near  the  tomb,  to 
wander  on  earth  or  flit  in  the  air,  or  to  travel  to  the  proper 
region  of  spirits — the  world  beyond  the  grave.  The  prin- 
cipal conceptions  of  the  lowor  psychology  as  to  a  Future 

'  A.J.Davis, '  Philosophy  ofSpiritual  Intercourse,' New  York,  1851, p.  49. 
'  Calmet,  vol.  i.  ch.  xli,  &c. 


IMAGE  EVALUATION 
TEST  TARGET  {MT-3) 


1.0 


I.I 


■^  Bii   12.2 


140 


1.25    II  U    III  1.6 

^ 

6" 

► 

* 


Photographic 

Sciences 
Corporation 


33  WEST  MAIN  STREET 

WEBSTER,  N.Y.  14580 

(716)  872-4503 


Si*! 


458 


ANIMISM. 


I 


// 


I 


Life  will  be  considered  in  the  following  chapters,  but  for 
the  present  purpose  of  investigating  the  theory  of  souls  in 
general,  it  will  be  well  to  enter  here  upon  one  department 
of  the  subject.  Men  do  not  stop  short  at  the  persuasion 
that  death  releases  the  soul  to  a  free  and  active  existence, 
but  they  quite  logically  proceed  to  assist  nature,  by  slaying 
men  in  order  to  liberate  their  souls  for  ghostly  uses.  Thus 
there  arises  one  of  the  most  wide-spread,  distinct,  and  intel- 
ligible rites  of  animistic  religion — that  of  funeral  human 
sacrifice  for  the  service  of  the  dead.  When  a  man  of  rank 
dies  and  his  soul  departs  to  its  own  place,  wherever  and 
whatever  that  place  may  be,  it  is  a  rational  inference  of 
early  philosophy  the,t  the  souls  of  attendants,  slaves,  and 
wives,  put  to  death  at  his  funeral,  will  make  the  same 
journey  and  continue  their  service  in  the  next  life,  and  the 
argument  is  frequently  stretched  further,  to  include  the 
souls  of  new  victims  sacrificed  in  order  that  they  may  enter 
upon  the  same  ghostly  servitude.  It  will  appear  from  the 
ethnography  of  this  rite  that  it  is  not  strongly  marked  in 
the  very  lowest  levels  of  culture,  but  that,  arising  in  the 
lower  barbaric  stage,  it  develops  itself  in  the  higher,  and 
thenceforth  continues  or  dwindles  in  survival. 

Of  the  murderous  practices  to  which  this  opinion  leads, 
remarkably  distinct  accounts  may  be  cited  from  among 
tribes  of  the  Indian  Archipelago.  The  following  account  is 
given  of  the  funerals  of  great  men  among  the  rude  Kayans 
of  Borneo : — '  Slaves  are  killed  in  order  that  they  may 
follow  the  deceased  and  attend  upon  him.  Before  they  are 
killed  the  relations  who  surround  them  enjoin  them  to  take 
great  care  of  their  master  when  they  join  him,  to  watch  and 
shampoo  him  when  he  is  indisposed,  to  be  always  near  him, 
and  to  obey  all  his  behests.  The  female  relatives  of  the 
deceased  then  take  a  spear  and  slightly  wound  the  victims, 
after  which  the  males  spear  them  to  death.'  Again,  the 
opinion  of  the  Idaan  is  '  that  all  whom  they  kill  in  this 
world  shall  attend  them  as  slaves  after  death.  This  notion 
of  future  interest  in  the  destruction  of  the  human  species  is 


',f 


ANIMISM. 


459 


ers,  but  for 
of  souls  in 
department 
persuasion 
e  existence, 
by  slaying 
ises.  Thus 
\>,  and  intel- 
sral  human 
lan  of  rank 
lerever  and 
nference  of 
slaves,  and 
3  the  same 
ife,  and  the 
nclude  the 
Y  may  enter 
ir  from  the 
marked  in 
ling  in  the 
liigher,  and 

aion  leads, 
om  among 
account  is 
de  Kayans 
they  may 
re  they  are 
em  to  take 
watch  and 

near  him, 
ves  of  the 
le  victims, 
^gain,  the 
ill  in  this 
his  notion 

species  is  | 


a  great  impediment  to  an  intercourse  with  them,  as  murder 
goes  farther  than  present  advantage  or  resentment.  From 
the  same  principle  they  will  purchase  a  slave,  guilty  of  any 
capital  crime^  at  fourfold  his  value,  that  they  may  be  his 
executioners.'  With  the  same  idea  is  connected  the  fero- 
cious custom  of  'head-hunting,'  so  prevalent  among  the 
Dayaks  before  Rajah  Brooke's  time.  They  considered  that 
the  owner  of  every  human  head  they  could  procure  would 
serve  them  in  the  next  world,  where,  indeed,  a  man's  rank 
would  be  according  to  his  number  of  heads  in  this.  They 
would  continue  the  mourning  for  a  dead  man  till  a  head  was 
brought  in,  to  provide  him  with  a  slave  to  accompany  him 
to  the  *  habitation  of  souls ; '  a  father  who  lost  his  child 
would  go  out  and  kill  the  first  man  he  met,  as  a  funeral 
ceremony ;  a  young  man  might  not  maiTy  till  he  had  pro- 
cured a  head,  and  some  tribes  would  bury  with  a  dead  man 
the  first  head  he  had  taken,  together  with  spears,  cloth,  rice, 
and  betel.  Waylaying  and  murdering  men  for  their  heads 
became,  in  fact,  the  Dayaks'  national  sport,  and  they  re- 
marked 'the  white  men  read  books,  we  hunt  for  heads 
instead.'^  Of  such  rites  in  the  Pacific  islands,  the  most 
hideously  purposeful  accounts  reach  us  from  the  Fiji  group. 
Till  lately,  a  main  part  of  the  ceremony  of  a  great  man's 
funeral  was  the  strangling  of  wives,  friends,  and  slaves,  for 
the  distinct  purpose  of  attending  him  into  the  world  of 
spirits.  Ordinarily  the  first  victim  was  the  vife  of  the 
deceased,  and  more  than  one  if  he  had  several,  and  their 
corpses,  oiled  as  for  a  feast,  clothed  with  new  fringed 
girdles,  with  heads  dressed  and  ornamented,  and  vermilion 
and  turmeric  powder  spread  on  their  faces  and  bosoms, 
were  laid  by  the  side  of  the  dead  warrior.  Associates  and 
inferior  attendants  were  likewise  slain,  and  these  bodies 


'  '  Journ.  Ind.  Archip.'  vol.  ii.  p.  359  ;  vol.  iii.  pp.  104,  556  ;  Earl, 
'  Eastern  Seas,'  p.  266 ;  St.  John,  '  Far  East,'  vol.  i.  pp.  52,  73,  79,  119  ; 
Mundy,  *  Narr.  from  Brooke's  Journals,'  p.  203.  Heads  were  taken  as  funeral 
offerings  by  the  Garos  of  N.  E.  India,  Eliot  in  '  As.  Res.'  vol.  iii.  p.  28, 
Dalton,  '  Descr.  Ethnol.  of  Bengal,'  p.  67  ;  see  also  pp.  46-7  (Kukis). 


460 


ANIMISM. 


were  spoken  of  as  '  grass  for  bedding  the  grave.'  When 
Ra  Mbithi,  the  pride  of  Somosomo,  was  lost  at  sea,  seven- 
teen of  hip  wives  were  killed ;  and  after  the  news  of  the 
massacre  of  the  Namena  people,  in  1839,  eighty  women 
were  strangled  to  accompany  the  spirits  of  their  murdered 
husbands.  Such  sacrifices  took  place  under  the  same  pres- 
sure of  public  opinion  which  kept  up  the  widow-burning  in 
modern  India.  The  Fijian  widow  was  worked  upon  by  her 
relatives  with  all  the  pressure  of  persuasion  and  of  menace ; 
she  understood  well  that  life  to  her  henceforth  would  mean 
a  wretched  existence  of  neglect,  disgrace,  and  destitution  ; 
and  tyrannous  custom,  as  hard  to  struggle  against  in  the 
savage  as  in  the  civilized  world,  drove  her  to  the  grave. 
Thus,  far  from  resisting,  she  became  importunate  for  death 
and  the  new  life  to  come,  and  till  public  opinion  reached  a 
more  enlightened  state,  the  missionaries  often  used  their 
influence  in  vain  to  save  from  the  strangling-cord  some  wife 
whom  they  could  have  rescued,  but  who  herself  refused  to 
live.  So  repugnant  to  the  native  mind  was  the  idea  of 
a  caieftain  going  unattended  into  the  other  world,  that 
the  missionaries'  prohibition  of  tht^  cherished  custom  was 
one  reason  of  the  popular  dislike  to  Christ'  '^'lity.  Many  of 
the  nominal  Christians,  when  once  a  chief  leirs  was  shot 
from  an  ambush,  esteemed  it  most  fortunate  that  a  stray 
shot  at  the  same  time  killed  a  young  man  at  a  distance 
from  him,  and  thus  provided  a  companion  for  the  spirit 
of  the  slain  chief.^ 

In  America,  the  funeral  human  sacrifice  makes  its  charac- 
teristic appearance.  A  good  example  may  be  taken  from 
among  the  Osages,  whose  habit  was  sometimes  to  plant  in 
the  cairn  raised  over  a  corpse  a  pole  with  an  enemy's  scalp 
hanging  to  the  top.  Their  notion  was  that  by  taking  an 
enemy  and  suspending  his  scalp  over  the  grave  of  a  deceased 
friend,  the  spirit  of  the  victim  became  subjected  to  the  spirit 


>  T.  Williams,  <  Fiji,'  vol.  i.  pp.  188-204 ;  Mariner,  *  Tonga  Is.'  vol.  ii. 
p.  220.  For  New  Zealand  accounts,  see  R.  Taylor,  '  New  Zealand,'  pp.  218, 
227  ;  Polack,  'New  Zealanders,'  vol.  i.  pp.  66,  78,  116. 


AiaillSM. 


461 


Lve.'  When 
t  sea,  seven- 
news  of  the 
^hty  women 
iir  murdered 
e  same  pres- 
v^-burning  in 
upon  by  her 
I  of  menace ; 
would  mean 
destitution  ; 
ainst  in  the 
5  the  grave, 
ite  for  death 
)n  reached  a 
1  used  their 
rd  some  wife 
If  refused  to 
the  idea  of 
world,  that 
custom  was 
Many  of 
lirs  was  shot 
hat  a  stray 
a  distance 
the  spirit 

3  its  charac- 
taken  from 
to  plant  in 
emy's  scalp 
r  taking  an 
a  deceased 
0  the  spirit 

ga  Is.'  vol.  ii. 
and,'  pp.  218, 


of  the  buried  warrior  in  the  land  of  spirits.  Hence  the 
last  and  best  service  that  could  be  performed  for  a  deceased 
relative  was  to  take  an  enemy's  life,  and  thus  transmit  it 
by  his  scalp.^  The  con*espondence  of  this  idea  with  that 
just  mentioned  among  the  Dayaks  is  very  striking.  With 
a  similar  intention,  the  Caribs  would  slay  on  the  dead 
master's  grave  any  of  his  slaves  they  could  lay  liands  on.^ 
Among  the  native  peoples  risen  to  considerably  higher 
grades  of  social  and  political  life,  these  practices  were  not 
suppressed  but  exaggerated,  in  the  ghastly  sacrifices  of  war- 
riors, slaves,  and  wives,  who  departed  to  continue  their 
duteous  offices  at  the  funeral  of  the  chief  or  monarch  in 
Central  America^  and  Mexico,*  in  Bogota^  and  Peru.®  It 
is  interesting  to  notice,  in  somewhat  favourable  contrast 
with  these  customs  of  comparatively  cultured  American 
nations,  the  practice  of  certain  rude  tribes  of  the  North- 
West.  The  Quakeolths,  for  instance,  did  not  actually 
sacrifice  the  widow,  but  they  made  her  rest  her  head  on  her 
husband's  corpse  while  it  was  being  burned,  until  at  last 
she  was  dragged  more  dead  than  alive  from  the  flames ;  if 
she  recovered,  she  collected  her  husband's  ashes  and  carried 
them  about  with  her  for  three  years,  during  which  any 
levity  or  deficiency  of  grief  would  render  her  an  outcast. 
This  looks  like  a  mitigated  survival  from  an  earlier  custom 
of  actual  widow-burning.^ 

Of  such  funeral  rites,  carried  out  to  the  death,  graphic 

•  J.  M'Coy,  'Hist,  of  Baptist  Indian  Missions,'  p.  860  ;  Waitz.  vol.  iii. 
p.  200. 

'  Rochefort,  'lies  Antilles,'  pp.  429,  512  ;  see  also  J.  G.  Miiller,  pp.  174, 
222. 

'  Oviedo,  '  Hist,  de  las  Indias,'  lib.  xxix.  c.  31 ;  Charlevoix,  '  Nouv.  Fr.' 
vol.  vi.  p.  178  (Natchez)  ;  Waitz,  vol.  iii.  p.  219.  See  Brinton,  '  Myths 
of  New  World,'  p.  239. 

•  Brasseur,  '  Mexique,'  vol.  iii.  p.  573. 

'  Piedrahita,  '  Nuevo  Eeyno  de  Granada,'  part  i.  lib.  i.  c.  3. 

•  Cieza  de  Leon,  p.  161 ;  Rivero  and  Tschudi,  '  Peruv.  Ant.'  p.  200 ; 
Prescott,  '  Peru,'  vol.  i.  p.  29.  See  statements  as  to  eflSgies,  J.  G.  Miiller, 
p.  879. 

'  Simpson,  'Journey,'  vol.  i.  p.  190  ;  similar  practice  among  TakuUi  or 
Carrier  Ind.,  Waitz,  vol.  iii.  p.  200. 


463 


ANIMISM. 


// 


and  horrid  descriptions  are  recorded  in  the  countries  across 
Africa — East,  Central,  and  West.    A  headman  of  the  Wa- 
doe  is  buried  sitting  in  a  shallow  pit,  and  with  the  corpse  a 
male  and  female  slave  alive,  he  with  a  bill-hook  in  his  hand 
to  cut  fuel  for  his  lord  in  the  death-world,  she  seated  on  a 
little  stool  with  the  dead  chiefs  head  in  her  lap.    A  chief 
of  Unyamwezi  is  entombed  in  a  vaulted  pit,  sitting  on  a 
low  stool  with  a  bow  in  his  right  hand,  and  provided  with  a 
pot  of  native  beer ;  with  him  are  shut  in  alive  three  women 
slaves,  and  the  ceremony  is  concluded  with  a  libation  of 
beer  on  the  earth  heaped  up  above  them  all.     The  same 
idea  which  in  Guinea  makes  it  common  for  the  living  to 
send  messages  by  the  dying  to  the  dead,  is  developed  in 
Ashanti  and  Dahome  into  a  monstrous  system  of  massacre. 
The  King  of  Dahome  must  enter  Deadland  with  a  ghostly 
court  of  hundreds  of  wives,  eunuchs,  singers,  drummers, 
and  soldiers.     Nor  is  this  all.     Captain  Burton  thus  de- 
scribes the  yearly  '  Customs : ' — '  They  periodically  supply 
the  departed  monarch  with  fresh  attendants  in  the  shadowy 
world.     For  unhappily  these  murderous  scenes  are  an  ex- 
pression, lamentably  mistaken  but  perfectly  sincere,  of  the 
liveliest  filial  piety.'     Even  this  annual  slaughter  must  be 
supplemented  by  almost  daily  murder : — '  Whatever  action, 
however  trivial,  is  performed  by  the  King,  it  must  dutifully 
be  reported  to  his  sire  in  the  shadowy  realm.    A  victim, 
almost  always  a  war-captive,  is  chosen  ;  the  message  is  de- 
livered to  him,  an  intoxicating  draught  of  rum  follows  it, 
and  he  is  dispatched  to  Hades  in  the  best  of  humours'^ 
In  southern  districts  of  Africa,  accounts  of  the  same  class 
begin  in  Congo  and  Angola  with  the  recorded  slaying  of 
the  dead  man's  favourite  wives,  to  live  with  him  in  the  other 
world,  a  practice  still  in  vogue  among  the  Chevas  of  the 
Zambesi  district,  and  formerly  known  among  the  Mara  vis  ; 
while  the  funeral  sacrifice  of  attendants  with  a  chief  is  a 


*  Burton,  *  Central  Afr.'  vol.  i.  p.  124  ;  vol.  ii.  p.  25  ;  '  Dahome,'  vol.  ii. 
p.  18,  &c. ;  'Tr.  Eth.  Soc'  vol.  iii.  p.  403  ;  J.  L.  Wilson,  '  W.  Afr.'  pp.  208, 
219,  394.    See  also  H.  Rowley,  '  Mission  to  Central  Africa,'  p.  229. 


ANIMISM. 


463 


Qtries  across 
of  the  Wa- 
the  corpse  a 
:  in  his  hand 
seated  on  a 
i,p.     A  chief 
sitting  on  a 
nded  with  a 
three  women 
L  libation  of 
The  same 
he  living  to 
leveloped  in 
of  massacre, 
ih  a  ghostly 
,  drummers, 
an  thus  de- 
jally  supply 
ihe  shadowy 
8  are  an  ex- 
icere,  of  the 
ter  must  be 
ever  action, 
ist  dutifully 
A  victim, 
jssage  is  de- 
follows  it, 
humours  '^ 
same  class 
I  slaying  of 
in  the  other 
evas  of  the 
le  Maravis ; 
chief  is  a 

home,'  vol.  ii. 
Afr.'  pp.  203, 
229. 


fling  of  the  past  among  the  Barotse,  as  among  the  Zulus, 
who  yet  have  not  forgotten  the  days  when  the  chiefs 
servants  and  attendant  warriors  were  cast  into  the  fire 
which  had  consumed  his  body,  that  they  might  go  with  him, 
and  prepare  things  beforehand,  and  get  food  for  him.^ 

If  now  we  turn  to  the  records  of  Asia  and  Europe,  we 
shall  find  the  sacrifice  of  attendants  for  the  dead  widely 
prevalent  in  both  continents  in  old  times,  while  in  the  east 
its  course  may  be  traced  continuing  onward  to  our  own  day. 
The  two  Mohammedans  who  travelled  in  Southern  Asia  in 
the  ninth  century  relate  that  on  the  accession  of  certain 
kings  a  quantity  of  rice  is  prepared,  which  is  eaten  by  some 
three  or  four  hundred  men,  who  present  themselves  volun- 
tarily to  share  it,  thereby  undertaking  to  burn  themselves  at 
the  monarch's  death.  With  this  corresponds  Marco  Polo's 
thirteenth  century  account  in  Southern  India  of  the  king 
of  Maabar's  guard  of  horsemen,  who,  when  he  dies  and  his 
body  is  burnt,  throw  themselves  into  the  fire  to  do  him 
service  in  the  next  world.^  In  the  seventeenth  century  the 
practice  is  described  as  still  prevailing  in  Japan,  where,  on 
the  death  of  a  nobleman,  from  ten  to  thirty  of  his  servants 
put  themselves  to  death  by  the  '  hara  kari,'  or  ripping-up, 
having  indeed  engaged  during  his  lifetime,  by  the  solemn 
compact  of  drinking  wine  together,  to  give  their  bodies  to 
their  lord  at  his  death.  Yet  ab-eady  in  ancient  times  such 
funeral  sacrifices  were  passing  into  survival,  when  the 
servants  who  followed  their  master  in  death  were  replaced 
by  clay  images  set  up  at  the  tomb.^  Among  the  Ossetes  of 
the  Caucasus,  an  interesting  relic  of  widow-sacrifice  is  still 
kept  up :  the  dead  man's  widow  and  his  saddle-horse  are 
led  thrice  round  the  grave,  and  no  man  may  marry  the 

'  Cavazzi,  '1st.  Descr.  de'  tre  Regni  Congo,  Matamba,  et  Angola,'  Bologna, 
1687,  lib.  i.  264  ;  Waltz,  vol.  ii.  pp.  419-21  ;  Callaway,  '  Religion  of  Ama- 
zulu,'  p.  212. 

*  Renaudot,  'Ace.  by  two  Mohammedan  Travellers,'  London,  1733,  p. 
81 ;  and  in  Pinkerton,  vol.  vii.  p.  215  ;  Marco  Polo,  book  iii.  chap,  xx ; 
and  in  Pinkerton,  vol.  vii.  p.  162. 

^  Caron,  'Japan,'  ibid.,  p.  622  ;  Siebold,  '  Nippon,"  v.  p.  22. 


V 


464 


ANIMISM. 


r  : 
■•-t 
«   '• 

: ! 


widow  or  mount  the  horse  thus  devoted.*  In  China,  legend 
preserves  the  memory  of  the  ancient  funeral  human  sacrifice. 
The  brother  of  Chin  Yang,  a  disciple  of  Confucius,  died, 
and  his  widow  and  steward  wished  to  bury  some  living 
persons  with  him,  to  serve  him  in  the  regions  below. 
Thereupon  the  sage  suggested  that  the  proper  victims 
would  be  the  widow  and  steward  themselves,  but  this  not 
precisely  meeting  their  views,  the  matter  dropped,  and  the 
deceased  was  interred  without  attendants.  This  story  at 
least  shows  the  rite  to  have  been  not  only  known  but 
understood  in  China  long  ago.  In  modern  China,  the 
suicide  of  widows  to  accompany  their  husbands  is  a  recog- 
nized practice,  sometimes  even  performed  in  public.  More- 
over, the  ceremonies  of  providing  sedan-bearers  and  an 
umbrella-bearer  for  the  dead,  and  sending  mounted  horse- 
men to  announce  beforehand  his  arrival  to  the  authoiities 
of  Hades,  although  these  bearers  and  messengers  are  only 
made  of  paper  and  burnt,  seem  to  represent  survivals  of  a 
more  murderous  reality.'^ 

The  Aryan  race  gives  striking  examples  of  the  rite  of 
funeral  human  sacrifice  in  its  sternest  shape,  whether  in 
history  or  in  myth,  that  records  as  truly  as  history  the 
manners  of  old  days.^  The  episodes  of  the  Trojan  cap- 
tives laid  with  the  horses  and  hounds  on  the  funei*al  pile  of 
Patroklos,  and  of  Evadne  throwing  herself  into  the  funeral 
pile  of  her  husband,  and  Pausanias's  narrative  of  the  suicide 
of  the  three  Messenian  widows,  are  among  its  Greek  repre- 
sentatives.*   In  Scandinavian  myth,  Baldr  is  burnt  with  his 

*  '  Journ.  Ind.  Archip.'  new  series,  vol.  ii.  p.  874. 

*  Legge, '  Confucius,'  p.  119  ;  Doolittle. '  Chinese,'  vol.  i.  pp.  1 08, 174, 192. 
The  practice  of  attacking  or  killing  all  persons  met  by  a  funeral  procession 
is  perhaps  generally  connected  with  funeral  human  sacrifice ;  any  one  met 
on  the  road  by  the  funeral  of  a  Mongol  prince  was  slain  and  ordered  to  go 
as  escort ;  in  the  Kimbunda  country,  any  one  who  meets  a  royal  funeral 
procession  is  put  to  death  with  the  other  victims  at  the  grave  (Magyar, '  Siid. 
Afrika,'  p.  353) ;  see  also  Mariner,  *  Tonga  Is.'  vol.  i.  p.  403  ;  Cook,  *  First 
Voy.'  vol.  i.  pp.  146,  236  (Tahiti). 

'  Jakob  Grimm,  '  Verbrennen  der  Leichen,'  contains  an  instructive  col- 
lection of  references  and  citations. 

*  Homer,  II.  xxiii.  175  ;  Eurip.  Suppl.  ;  Pausanias,  iv.  2. 


China,  legend 
man  sacrifice, 
nfucius,  died, 
some  living 
igions  below, 
oper  victims 
I,  but  this  not 
pped,  and  the 
This  story  at 
f  known  but 
n  China,  the 
tds  is  a  recog- 
•ublic.    More- 
larers  and  an 
ounted  horse- 
he  authorities 
agers  are  only 
survivals  of  a 

I  of  the  rite  of 
le,  whether  in 
IS  history  the 

Trojan  cap- 
funeral  pile  of 
to  the  funeral 

of  the  suicide 
I  Greek  repre- 

lurnt  with  his 


pp.108, 174, 192. 

luneral  procession 

fice  ;  any  one  met 

[ind  ordered  to  go 

a  royal  funeral 

■e  (Magyar, '  Slid. 

l03  ;  Cook,  '  First 

In  instructive  col- 

b. 


ANIMISM. 


465 


dwarf  foot-page,  his  horse  and  saddle  ;  Brynhild  lies  on  the 
pile  by  her  beloved  Sigurd,  and  men  and  maids  follow  after 
them  on  the  hell-way,'     The  Gauls  in  Csesar's  time  burned 
at  the  dead  man's  sumptuous  funeral  whatever  was  dear  to 
him,  animals  also,  and  much-loved  slaves  and  clients.^    Old 
mentions  of  Slavonic  heathendom  describe  the  burning  of 
the  dead  with  clothing  and  weapons,  horses  and  hounds, 
with  faithful  servants,  and  above  all,  with  wives.     Thus 
St.  Boniface  says  that  '  the  Wends  keep  matrimonial  love 
with  so  great  zeal,  that  the  wife  may  refuse  to  survive  her 
husband,  and  she  is  held  praiseworthy  among  women  who 
slays  herself  with  her  own  hand,  that  she  may  be  burnt  on 
one  pyre  with  her  lord.'  ^     This  Aryan  rite  of  widow-sacri- 
fice has  not  only  an  ethnographic  and  antiquarian  interest, 
but  even  a  place  in  modern  politics.    In  Brahmanic  India 
the  widow  of  a  Hindu  of  the  Brahman  or  the  Kshatriya 
caste  was  burnt  on  the  funeral  pile  with  her  husband,  as  a 
aati  or  'good  woman,'  which  word  has  passed  into  English 
as  suttee.     Mentioned  in  classic  and  mediaeval  times,  the 
practice  was  in  full  vigour  at  the  beginning  of  the  present 
century.*     Often  one  dead  husband  took  many  wives  with 
him.     Some  went  willingly  and  gaily  to  the  new  life,  many 
were  driven  by  force  of  custom,  by  fear  of  disgrace,  by 
family  persuasion,  by  priestly  threats  and   promin  i,  by 
sheer  violence.     When  the  rite  was  suppressed  under   'mo- 
dern British  rule,  the  priesthood  resisted  to  the  uttermost, 
appealing  to  the  Veda  as  sanctioning  the  ordinance,  and 
demanding  that  the  foreign  rulers  should  respect  it.    Yet 
in  fact,  as   Prof.   H.  H.  Wilson  proved,  the  priests  had 
actually  falsified  their  sacred  Veda  in  support  of  a  rite 
enjoined  by  long  and  inveterate  prejudice,  but  not  by  the 
traditional  standards  of  Hindu  faith.     The  ancient  Brah- 

*  Edda,  'Gylfaginning,'  49  ;  '  Brynhildarqvitha,'  &c. 
»  Csesar.  Bell.  Gall.  vi.  19. 

»  Hanusch,  'Slaw.  Myth.'  p.  145. 

*  Strabo,  xv.  1,  62 ;  Cic.  Tusc.  Disp.  v.  27,  78 ;  Diod.  Sic.  xvii.  91 ;  xlx. 
33,  &c. ;  Grimm,  '  Verbrennen,'  p.  261 ;  Renaudot,  '  Two  Mohammedans,' 
p.  4  ;  and  in  Pinkerton,  vol.  vii.  p.  194.  See  Buchanan,  ibid.  pp.  675 
682  ;  Ward,  'Hindoos,'  vol.  ii.  pp.  298-312. 

VOL.  I.  H  h 


y 


ii 
m 
■« 


•H 


466 


ANIMISM. 


U: 


M 

11 


manic  funeral  rites  have  been  minutely  detailed  from  the 
Sanskrit  authorities  in  an  essay  by  Prof.  Max  Muller. 
Their  directions  are  that  the  widow  is  to  be  set  on  the 
funeral  pile  with  her  husband's  corpse,  and  if  he  be  a  war- 
rior his  bow  is  to  be  placed  there  too.  But  then  a  brother- 
in-law  or  adopted  child  or  old  servant  is  to  lead  the  widow 
down  again  at  the  summons,  'Rise,  woman,  come  to  the 
world  of  life;  thou  sleepest  nigh  unto  him  whose  life  is 
gone.  Come  to  us.  Thou  hast  thus  fulfilled  thy  duties  of 
a  wife  to  the  husband  who  once  took  thy  hand,  and  made 
thee  a  mother.'  The  bow,  however,  is  to  be  broken  and 
thrown  back  upon  the  pile,  and  the  dead  man's  sacrificial 
instruments  are  to  be  laid  with  him  and  really  consumed. 
While  admitting  that  the  modern  ordinance  of  Suttee- 
burning  is  a  corrupt  departure  from  the  early  Brah- 
manic  ritual,  we  may  nevertheless  find  reason  to  consider 
the  practice  as  not  a  new  invention  by  the  later  Hindu 
priesthood,  but  as  the  revival,  under  congenial  influences, 
of  an  ancient  Aryan  rite  belonging  originally  to  a  period 
even  earlier  than  the  Veda.  The  ancient  authorized  cere- 
mony looks  as  though,  in  a  primitive  form  of  the  rite, 
the  widow  had  been  actually  sent  with  the  dead,  for 
which  real  sacrifice  a  humaner  law  substituted  a  mere 
pretence.  This  view  is  supported  by  the  existence  of 
an  old  and  express  prohibition  of  the  wife  being  sacri- 
ficed, a  prohibition  seemingly  directed  against  a  real  cus- 
tom, '  to  follow  the  dead  husband  is  prohibited,  so  says  the 
law  of  the  Brahmans.  With  regard  to  the  other  castes  this 
law  for  women  may  be  or  may  not  be.'  ^  To  treat  tke 
Hindu  widow-burning  as  a  case  of  survival  and  revival' 
seems  to  me  most  in  accordance  with  a  general  ethnographicf 
view  of  the  subjeat.  Widow-Bacrifiice  is  found  in  variouer 
regions  of  the  world  under  a  low  state  of  civilization,  and 

'  H.  H.  Wilson,  '  On  the  supposed  Vaidik  authority  for  the  Burning  of 
Hindu  Widows,'  in  '  Journ.  Roy.  As.  Soc'  vol.  xvi.  (1854)  p.  201 ;  in  his 
'Works,'  vol.  ii.  p.  270.  Max  Muller,  ' Todtenbestattung  bei  den  Brah- 
manen,'  in  'Zeitschr.  der  Deutsch.  Morgenl.  Ges.'  vol.  ix.  ;  '  Chips,'  vol.  ii. 
p.  34. 


tiled  from  the 
Max  Muller. 
be  set  on  the 
f  he  be  a  war- 
)hen  a  brother- 
ead  the  widow 
I,  come  to  the 
.  whose  life  is 
i  thy  duties  of 
ind,  and  made 
be  broken  and 
lan's  sacrificial 
ally  consumed, 
nee  of  Suttee- 
e  early  Brah- 
on  to  consider 
ae  later  Hindu 
aial  influences, 
Jly  to  a  period 
|,uthorized  cere- 
m  of  the  rite, 

the   dead,  for 
ituted   a  mere 

existence    of 
being   sacri- 

.st  a  real  cus- 
led,  so  says  the 
ither  castes  this 
To  treat  tke 

J  and  revival' 
ethnographi(f 

ind  in  variouer 

[vilization,  and 

the  Burning  of 

)  p.  201 ;  in  his 

ag  boi  den  Brali- 

;  '  Chips,"  vol.  ii. 


ANIMISM. 


467 


this  fits  with  the  hypothesis  of  its  having  belonged  to  the 
Aryan  race  while  yet  in  an  early  and  barbarous  oonditioe. 
Thus  the  prevalence  of  a  rite  of  suttee  like  that  of  modem 
India  among  ancient  Aryan  nations  settled  in   Europe, 
Qreeks,  Scandinavians,  Germans,  Slaves,  may  be  simply 
accounted  for  by  direct  inheritance  from  the  remote  common 
antiquity  of  them  al^i   If  this  theory  be  sound,  it  will  follow 
that  ancient  as  the  Vedic  ordinances  may  be,  they  represent 
in  this  matter  a  reform  and  a  re-action  against  a  yet  more 
ancient  barbaric  rite  of  widow-sacrifice,  which  they  pro- 
hibited in  fact,  but  yet  kept  up  in  symbof.    The  history  of 
religion  displays  but  too  plainly  the  proneness  of  mankind*' 
to  relapse,  in  spite  of  reformation,  into  the  lower  and  darker 
condition  of  the  past.    Stronger  and  more  tenacious  thafi 
even  Vedic  authority,  the  hideous  custom  of  the  suttee  may 
have  outlived  an  attempt  to  suppress  it  in  early  Brahmanic 
times,  and  the  English  rulers,  in  abolishing  it,  may  hav^ 
abolished  a  relic  not  merely  of  degenerate  Hinduism,  bub' 
of  the  far  more  remotely  ancient  savagery  out  of  whiclu 
the  Aryan  civilization  had  grown. 

In  now  passing  from  the  consideration  of  the  souls  of 
men  to  that  of  the  soujg  of  the  lower  animals,  we  have  first 
to  inform  ourselves  as  to  the  savage  man's  idea,  which  is 
very  different  from  the  civilized  man's,  of  the  nature  of 
these  lower  animals.  A  remarkable  group  of  observances 
customary  among  rude  tribes  will  bring  this  distinction 
sharply  into  view.  Saiages  talk  quite  seriously  to  beasts 
alive  or  dead  as  they  would  to  men  alive  or  dead,  offer  them 
homage,  ask  pardon  when  it  is  their  painful  duty  to  hunt 
and  kill  them.  A  North  American  Indian  will  reason  with 
a  horse  as  if  rational.  Some  will  spare  the  rattlesnake, 
fearing  the  vengeance  of  its  spirit  if  slain ;  others  will 
salute  the  creature  reverently,  bid  it  welcome  as  a  friend 
from  the  land  of  spirits,  sprinkle  a  pinch  of  tobacco  on  its 
head  for  an  offering,  catch  it  by  the  tail  and  dispatch  it 
with  extreme  dexterity,  and  carry  off  its  skin  as  a  trophy. 
If  an  Indian  is  attacked  and  torn  by  a  bear,  it  is  that  the 

H  h  2 


/. 


\ 


468 


ANIMTflM. 


boast  fell  upon  him   intentionally  in  anger,  perhaps  to 
revenge  the  hurt  done  to  another  boar.     When  a  boar  is 
v/^       killed,  they  will  beg  pardon  of  him,  or  even  make  him  con- 
y^  done  the  ofFonqo  by  smoking  the  poace-pipe  with  his  mur- 

derers, who  put  the  pipe  in  his  mouth  and  blow  down  it, 
bogging  his  spirit  not  take  revenge.^  So  in  Africa,  the  Kafirs 
will  hunt  the  elephant,  bogging  him  not  to  tread  on  them 
and  kill  them,  and  when  he  is  dead  they  will  assure  him 
fy  that  they  did  not  kill  him  on  purpose,  and  they  will  bury 
his  trunk,  for  the  elephant  is  a  mighty  chief,  and  his  trunk 
is  his  hand  that  ho  may  hurt  withal.  The  Congo  people 
will  even  avenge  such  a  murder  by  a  pretended  attack  on 
the  hunters  who  did  the  deed."  Such  customs  are  common 
among  the  lower  Asiatic  tribes.  The  Stions  of  Kambodia 
ask  pardon  of  the  beast  they  have  killed ;  ^  the  Ainos  of 
Yesso  kill  the  bear,  offer  obeisance  and  salutation  to  him, 
and  cut  up  his  carcase.*  The  Koriaks,  if  they  have  slain  a 
bear  or  wolf,  will  flay  him,  dross  one  of  their  people  in  the 
skin,  and  dance  round  him,  chanting  excuses  that  they  did 
not  do  it,  and  especially  laying  the  blame  on  a  Russian. 
But  if  it  is  a  fox,  they  take  his  skin,  wrap  his  dead  body  in 
hay,  and  sneering  toll  him  to  go  to  his  own  people  and  say 
what  famous  hospitality  ho  has  had,  and  how  they  gave  him 
a  new  coat  instead  of  his  old  one.'  The  Samoyeds  excuse 
themselves  to  the  slain  bear,  telling  him  it  was  the  Russians 
who  did  it,  and  that  a  Russian  knife  will  cut  him  up."  The 
Goldi  will  set  up  the  slain  bear,  call  him  'my  lord'  and 
do  ironical  homage  to  him,  or  taking  him  alive  will  fatten 
him  in  a  cage,  call  him  '  son '  and  *  brother,'  and  kill 
and  eat  him  as  a  sacrifice  at  a  solemn  festival.''     In  Borneo, 


'  Schoolcraft,  '  Indian  Tribes,'  part  i.  p.  543  ;  part  iii.  pp.  229,  520  ; 
Waitz,  vol.  iii.  pp.  191-8. 
'  Klemm,  '  Cultur-Gesch.'  vol.  iii.  pp.  355,  364  ;  Waitz,  vol.  ii.  p.  178. 
'  Mouhot,  '  Indo-China,'  vol.  i.  p.  252. 

*  Wood  in  '  Tr.  Eth.  Soc'  vol.  iv.  p.  36. 
°  Bastian,  '  Mensch,'  vol.  iii.  p.  26. 

•  De  Brosses,  '  Dieux  Fetiches,'  p.  61. 

'  Eavenstein,  'Amur,'  p.  382  j  T.  W.  Atkinson,  p.  483. 


!!:t 


ANIMISM. 


461) 


er,  perhaps  to 
'^hcn  a  boar  is 
Tiako  him  con- 
with  his  mui- 
blow  down  it, 
'rica,  the  Kafirs 
troad  on  them 
rill  assure  him 
they  will  bury 
,  and  his  trunk 
I  Congo  people 
nded  attack  on 
ns  are  common 
4  of  Kambodia 
^  the  Ainos  of 
itation  to  him, 
By  have  slain  a 
ir  people  in  the 
IS  that  they  did 
on  a  Russian, 
is  dead  body  in 
people  and  say 
they  gave  him 
moyeds  excuse 
as  the  Russians 
himup.«     The 
my  lord'  and 
ive  will  fatten 
ler,'   and  kill 
In  Borneo, 

iii.  pp.  229,  520  ; 
;z,  vol.  ii.  p.  178. 


the  Dayaks,  when  they  have  caught  an  alligator  with  a 
liaitcd  hook  and  rope,  address  him  with  respect  and  sooth- 
ing till  they  have  his  legs  fast,  and  then  mocking  cull  him 
'  rajah '  and  '  grandfather.'  *  Thus  when  the  savage  gets 
over  his  fears,  ho  still  keeps  up  in  ironical  merriment  the 
reverence  which  had  its  origin  in  trembling  sincerity.  Even 
now  the  Norse  hunter  will  say  with  horror  of  a  bear  that 
will  attack  man,  that  he  can  be  '  no  Christian  bear.' 

The  sense  of  an  absolute  psychical  distinction  between 
man  and  beast,  so  prevalent  in  the  civilized  world,  is  hardly 
to  be  found  among  the  lower  races.  Men  to  whom  the* 
cries  of  beasts  and  birds  seem  like  human  language,  and 
their  actions  guided  as  it  were  by  human  thought,  logically 
enough  allow  the  existence  of  souls  to  beasts,  birds,  and 
reptiles,  as  to  men.  The  lower  psychology  cannot  but  re- 
cognize in  beasts  the  very  characteristics  which  it  attributes 
to  the  human  soul,  namely,  the  phenomena  of  life  and 
death,  will  and  judgment,  and  the  phantom  seen  in  vision 
or  in  dream.  As  for  believers,  savage  or  civilized,  in  the 
great  doctrine  of  metempsychosis,  these  not  only  consider 
that  an  animal  may  have  a  soul,  but  that  this  soul  may  have 
inhabited  a  human  being,  and  thus  the  creature  may  be  in^ 
fact  their  own  ancestor  or  once  familiar  friend.  A  line  of 
facts,  arranged  as  way  marks  along  the  course  of  civilization, 
will  serve  to  indicate  the  history  of  opinion  from  savagery 
onward,  as  to  the  souls  of  animals  during  life  and  after 
deatb.  North  American  Indians  held  every  animal  to  have 
its  spirit,  and  these  spirits  their  future  life ;  the  soul  of  the 
Canadian  dog  went  to  serve  his  master  in  the  other  world ; 
among  the  Sioux,  the  prerogative  of  having  four  souls  was 
not  confined  to  man,  but  belonged  also  to  the  bear,  the 
most  human  of  animals.'-^  The  Greenlanders  considered 
that  a  sick  human  soul  might  be  replaced  by  the  sorcerer 
with  a  fresh  healthy  soul  of  a  hare,  a  reindeer,  or  a  young 


»  St.  John,  *  Far  East,'  vol.  ii.  p.  253  (Dayaks). 
'  Charlevoix,  '  Nouvelle  France,'  vol.   vi.   p.    78 ;  Sagard,    '  Hist. 
Canada,'  p.  497  ;  Schoolcraft,  '  Indian  Tribes,'  part  iii.  p.  229. 


du 


W-t' 


1: 

■1 

1 

m 

i;  'ill 

;S 

;vi^BB 

^, 

/ 

/' 


470 


ANIMISM. 


child. ^  Maori  tale-tellers  have  heard  of  the  road  by  which 
the  spirits  of  dogs  descend  to  Keinga,  the  Hades  of  the 
departed  ;  the  Hovas  of  Madagascar  know  that  the  ghosts 
of  beasts  and  men,  dwelling  in  a  great  mountain  in  the 
south  called  Ambondrombe,  come  out  occasionally  to  walk 
among  the  tombs  or  execution-places  of  criminals.^  The 
Kamchadals  held  that  every  creature,  even  the  smallest  fly, 
would  live  again  in  the  under  world.'*  The  Kukis  of  Assam 
think  that  the  ghost  of  every  animal  a  Kuki  kills  in  the 
chase  or  for  the  feast  will  belong  to  him  in  the  next  life, 
even  as  the  enemy  he  slays  in  the  field  will  then  become  his 
slave.  The  Karens  apply  the  doctrine  of  the  spirit  or 
personal  life-phantom,  which  is  apt  to  wander  from  the 
body  and  thus  suffer  injury,  equally  to  men  and  to  animals.* 
The  Zulus  say  the  cattle  they  kill  come  to  life  again,  and 
become  the  property  of  the  dwellers  in  the  world  beneath.^ 
The  Siamese  butcher,  when  in  defiance  of  the  very  prin- 
ciples of  his  Buddhism  he  slaughters  an  ox,  before  he  kills 
the  creature  has  at  least  the  grace  to  beseech  its  spirit  to 
seek  a  happier  abode.^  In  connexion  with  such  transmi- 
gration, Pythagorean  and  Platonic  philosophy  gives  to  tke 
lower  animals  undying  souls,  while  other  classic  opinion 
may  recognize  in  beasts  only  an  inferior  order  of  soul,  only^ 
the  'anima'  but  not  the  human  'animus'  besid«&.  Thus 
Juvenal: 

'Principio  indulsit  communis  conditor  illis 
Tantum  animas ;  nobis  animum  quoque.  ...'"' 

Through  the  middle  ages,  controversy  as  to  the  psychology 
of  brutes  has  lasted  on  into  our  own  times,  ranging  between 


>  Cranz,  'GrOnland,' p.  257. 

'  Taylor,  '  New  Zealand,'  p.  271  ;  Ellis,  *  Madagascar,'  vol.  i.  p. 


429. 


»  Steller,  '  Kamtschatka,'  p.  269. 

*  Stewart,  'Notes  on  Northern  Cachar,'  in  *  Journ.  As.  See.  Bengal,'  vol. 
xxiv.  p.  682  ;  Cross,  '  Karens,'  1.  c.  ;  Mason,  '  Karens,'  1.  c. 

»  Callaway,  'Zulu  Tales,'  vol.  i.  p.  317. 

'  Low  in  '  Journ.  Ind.  Archip.'  vol.  i.  p.  426.  See  Meiners,  vol.  i.  p. 
220  ;  vol.  ii.  p.  791. 

'  Juvenal,  Sat.  xv.  148. 


•oad  by  which 
Hades  of  the 
lat  the  ghosts 
untain  in  the 
mally  to  walk 
minals.^  The 
le  smallest  fly, 
ukis  of  Assam 
d  kills  in  the 

the  next  life, 
len  become  his 

the  spirit  or 
ider  from  the 
id  to  animals.* 
life  again,  and 
rorld  beneath.^ 
the  very  prin- 
before  he  kills 
h  its  spirit  to 

such  transmi- 
ly  gives  to  the 
ilassic  opinion 
)r  of  soul,  only 
Desid^B.     Thus 


IS 


he  psychology 
nging  between 


vol.  i.  p.  429. 

Soc.  Bengal,'  vol. 
c. 

Joiners,  vol.  i.  p. 


ANIMISM. 


471 


two  extremes :  on  the  one  the  theory  of  Descartes  which 
reduced  animals  to  mere  machines,  on  the  other  what  Mr. 
Alger  defines  as  'the  faith  that  animals  have  immaterial 
and  deathless  souls.'  Among  modern  speculations  may  be 
instanced  that  of  Wesley,  who  thought  that  in  the  next  life 
animals  will  be  raised  even  above  their  bodily  and  mental  . 
state  at  the  creation,  '  the  horridness  of  their  appearance  / 
will  be  exchanged  for  their  primaeval  beauty,'  and  it  even 
may  be  that  they  will  be  made  what  men  are  now,  creatures 
capable  of  religion.  Adam  Clarke's  argument  for  the  future 
life  of  animals  rests  on  abstract  justice:  whereas  they  did 
not  sin,  but  yet  are  involvrd  in  the  sufferings  of  sinful  man, 
and  cannot  have  in  the  prcbent  state  the  happiness  designed 
for  them,  it  is  reasonable  that  they  must  have  it  in  another.^ 
Although,  however,  the  primitive  belief  in  the  souls  -of 
animals  still  survives  to  some  extent  in  serious  philosophy^ 
it  is  obvious  that  the  tendency  of  educated  opinion  on  the 
question  whether  brutes  have  soul,  as  distinguished  from 
life  and  mind,  has  for  ages  been  in  a  negative  and  sceptical . 
direction."  The  doctrine  has  fallen  from  its  once  higii* 
esta^.  It  belonged  originally  to  real,  though  rude  science. 
It  has  now  sunk  to  become  a  favourite  topic  in  that  mild 
speculative  talk  which  still  does  duty  so  largely  as  intel- 
lectual conversation,  and  even  then  its  propounders  defend 
it  with  a  lurking  consciousness  of  its  being  after  all  a  piece 
of  sentimental  nonsense. 

Animals  being  thus  considered  in  the  primitive  psycha*" 
logy  to  have  souls  like  human  beings,  it  follows  as  the 
simplest  matter  of  course  that  tribes  who  kill  wives  and 
slaves,  to  dispatch  their  souls  on  errands  of  duty  with 

'  Alger,  '  Future  Life,'  p.  632,  and  see  '  Bibliography,'  appendix  ii.  ; 
Wesley,  'Sermon  on  Rom.  viii.  19-22;'  Adam  Clarke,  ' Commentary,' on 
same  text.  This,  by  the  way,  is  the  converse  view  to  Bellarmine's,  who  so 
patiently  let  the  fleas  bite  him,  saying,  '  We  shall  have  heaven  to  reward  us  '' 
for  our  sufferings,  but  these  poor  creatures  have  nothing  but  the  enjoyment 
of  the  present  life.'— Bayle,  '  Biog.  Die'  The  argument  in  Butler's 
'  Analogy,'  part  1.  eh.  i.  puts  the  evidence  for  souls  of  brutes  on  much 
the  same  footing  as  that  for  souU  of  men. 


h^ 


t    • 

!i 

!  1 

\ 


472 


ANIMISM. 


thdr  departed  lords,  may  also  kill  animals  in  ordor  tha4 
their  spirits  may  do  su^  servioe  as  is  proper  to  tbeofr 

The  Pawnee  warrior's  horse  is  slain  on  his  grave  to  be 
ready  for  him  to  mount  again,  and  the  Comanche's  best 
horses  are  buried  with  his   favourite   weapons  and  his 
pipe,  all  alike  to  be  used  in  the  distant  happy  hunting- 
grounds.^      In   South  America  not  only  do    such    rites 
occur,  but  they  reach  a  practically   disastrous   extreme. 
Patagonian   tribes,   says   D'Orbigny,  believe   in    another 
life,  where  they  are  to  enjoy  perfect  happiness,  therefore 
they  bury  with  the  deceased  his  arms   and   ornaments, 
and  even  kill  on  his  tomb  all  the  animals  which  belonged 
to  him,  that  he  may  find  them  in  the  abode  of  bliss  ;  and 
this  opposes  an  insurmountable  barrier  to  all  civilization, 
by  preventing  them  from  accumulating  property  and  fixing 
their  habitations.^    Not  only  do  Pope's  now  hackneyed 
lines   express   a    real  motive  with    which   the    Indian's 
dog  is  bui'ied  with  him,  but  on  the  North  American  con- 
tinent the  spirit  of  the  dog  has  another  remarkable  office 
to  perform.     Certain  Esquimaux,  as  Cranz  relates,  would 
lay  a  dog's  head  in  a  child's  grave,  that  the  soul  of  the  dog, 
who  is  everywhere  at  home,  might  guide  the  helpless  infant 
to  the  land  of  souls.    In  accordance  with  this,  Captain 
Scoresby  in  Jameson's  Land  found  a  dog's  skull  in  a  small 
grave,  probably  a  child's.     Again,  in  the  distant  region  ef 
the  Aztecs,  one  of  the  principal  funeral  ceremonies  was  to 
slaughter  a  techichi,  or  native  dog ;  it  was  burnt  or  burie<r 
with  the  corpse,  with  a  cotton  thread  fastened  to  its  neck; 
and  its  office  was  to  convey  the  deceased  across  the  deep 
waters  of  Chiuhnahuapan,  on  the  way  to  the  Land  of  the 
Dead.'^  The  dead  Buraet's  favourite  horse,  led  saddled  to 
the  grave,   killed,  and  flung  in,   may  serve  for  a  Tatar 

>  Schoolcraft,  'Indian  Tribes,'  part  i.  pp.  237,  262  ;  part  ii.  p.  68. 

'  D'Orbigny,  'L'Homme  Americain,'  vol.  i.  p.  196 ;  vol.  ii.  pp.  23,  78  ; 
Falkner,  '  Patagonia,'  p.  118  ;  Musters,  '  Patagonians,'  p.  178. 

•  Egede,  'Greenland,'  p.  152 ;  Cranz,  p.  301 ;  see  Nilsson,  p.  140.  Tor- 
qucmada,  '  Monarquia  Indiana,'  xiii.  ch.  47  ;  Clavigero,  '  Messico,'  vol.  ii. 
pp.  94-6. 


ANIMISM. 


473 


n  ordor  tha4 
[>er  to  therm 
grave  to  be 
lanche's  best 
lODs  and  his 
)py  hunting- 
)  such  rites 
Dus   extreme. 

in  another 
3SS,  therefore 
1  ornaments, 
ich  belonged 
Df  bliss ;  and 

civilization, 
ty  and  fixing 
V  hackneyed 
the  Indians 
merican  con- 
xkable  office 
slates,  would 
il  of  the  dog, 
ilpless  infant 
ihis,  Captain 
ill  in  a  small 
ut  region  ef 
onies  was  to 
nt  or  buried' 

to  its  neck*, 
)88  the  deep 

Land  of  th« 
saddled  to 

or  a  Tatar 

a.  p.  68. 

ii.  pp.  23,  78  ; 
78. 

p.  140.  Tor- 
lessico,'  vol.  ii. 


example.^  In  Tonquin,  even  wild  animals  have  been 
customarily  drowned  at  funeral  ceremonies  of  princes,  to  be 
at  the  service  of  the  departed  in  the  next  world.^  Among 
Semitic  tribes,  an  instance  of  the  custom  may  be  found  in 
the  Arab  sacrifice  of  a  camel  on  the  grave,  for  the  dead 
man's  spii'it  to  ride  upon.^  Among  the  nations  of  the 
Aryan  race  in  Europe,  the  prevalence  of  such  rites  is  deep, 
wide,  and  full  of  purpose.  Thus,  warriors  were  provided  in 
death  with  horses  and  housings,  with  hounds  and  falcons. 
Customs  thus  described  in  chronicle  and  legend,  are  vouched 
for  in  our  own  time  by  the  opening  of  old  barbaric  burial- 
places.  How  clear  a  relic  of  savage  meaning  lies  here  may 
be  judged  from  a  Livonian  account  as  late  as  the  fourteenth 
century,  which  relates  how  men  and  women  slaves,  sheep 
and  oxen,  with  other  things,  were  burnt  with  the  dead,  who, 
it  was  believed,  would  reach  some  region  of  the  living,  and 
find  there,  with  the  multitude  of  cattle  and  slaves,  a  country 
of  life  and  happiness.*  As  usual,  these  rites  may  be  traced 
onward  in  survival.  The  Mongols,  who  formerly  slaughtered 
camels  and  horses  at  their  owner's  burial,  have  been  induced 
to  replace  the  actual  sacrifice  by  a  gift  of  the  cattle  to  the 
Lamas.^  The  Hindus  offer  a  black  cow  to  the  Brahmans, 
in  order  to  secure  their  passage  across  the  Vaitarani,  the 
river  of  death,  and  will  often  die  grasping  the  cow's  tail  as 
if  to  swim  across  in  herdsman's  fashion,  holding  on  to  a 
cow.°  It  is  mentioned  as  a  belief  in  Northern  Europe  that 
he  who  has  given  a  cow  to  the  poor  wiU  find  a  cow  to  take 


'  Georgi,  '  Reise  im  Russ.  R.'  vol.  i.  p.  312. 

"  Baron,  'Tonquin,'  in  Pinkerton,  vol.  ix.  p.  704. 

3  W.  G.  Palgrave,  'Arabia,'  vol.  i.  p.  10 ;  Bastian,  'Mensch,'  vol.  'A.  p. 
834  ;  Waitz,  vol.  ii.  p.  519  (Gallas). 

*  Grimm,  '  Verbrennen  der  Leichen.'  A  curious  correspondence  in  the 
practice  of  cutting  off  a  fowl's  head  as  a  funeral  rite  is  to  be  noticed  among 
the  Yorubas  of  W.  Africa  (Burton,  '  W.  and  W.'  p.  220),  Chuwashes  of 
Siberia  (Gastrin,  'Finn.  Myth.'p.  120),  old  Russians  (Grimm,  'Verbrennen,' 
p.  254). 

'  Bastian,  '  Mensch,'  vol.  ii.  p.  335. 

'  Colebrooke,  '  Essays,'  vol.  i.  p.  177  ;  Ward,  '  Hindoos,'  vol.  ii.  pp.  62, 
284,  831. 


■i'At 


474 


ANIMISM. 


m 


r 

f'.i 

i^i 

/' 

p. 

:  •  X 

f  ^. 

fc  i 

r«    . 

»    1 

«   " 

1  i 

» 

^ 

/ 

k    , 

It 

him  over  the  bridge  of  the  dead,  and  a  custom  of  leading  a 
cow  in  the  funeral  procession  is  said  to  have  been  kept  up 
to  modern  times.  ^  All  these  rites  probably  belong  togetlMr 
as  connected  with  ancient  funeral  sacrifice,  and  the  survivaL 
of  the  custom  of  sacrificing  the  warrior's  horse  at  his  tomb  - 
is  yet  more  striking.-  Saint-Foix  long  ago  put  the  French 
evidence  very  forcibly.  Mentioning  the  horse  led  at  the 
funeral  of  Charles  VI.,  with  the  four  valets-de-pied  in  black, 
and  bareheaded,  holding  the  corners  of  its  caparison,  he 
recals  the  horses  and  servants  killed  and  buried  with  prse- 
Christian  kings.  And  that  his  readers  may  not  think  this 
an  extraordinary  idea,  he  brings  forward  the  records  of 
property  and  horses  being  presented  at  the  offertory  in 
Paris,  in  1329,  of  Edward  III.  presenting  horses  at  King 
John's  funeral  in  London,  and  of  the  funeral  service  for 
Bertrand  Duguesclin,  at  St.  Denis,  in  1389,  when  horses 
were  offered,  the  Bishop  of  Auxerre  laid  his  hand  on  their 
heads,  and  they  were  afterwards  compounded  for.^  Germany 
retained  the  actual  sacrifice  within  the  memory  of  living 
men.  A  cavalry  general,  Count  Friedrich  Kasimir  Boos 
von  Waldeck,  was  buried  at  Treves  in  1781  according  to 
the  forms  of  the  Teutonic  Order ;  his  horse  was  led  in  the 
procession,  and  the  coffin  having  been  lowered  into  the  grave, 
the  horse  was  killed  and  thrown  in  upon  it.^  This  was, 
perhaps,  the  last  occasion  when  such  a  sacrifice  was  con- 
summated in  solemn  form  in  Europe.  But  that  pathetic 
incident  of  a  soldier's  funeral,  the  leading  of  the  saddled  and 
bridled  charger  in  the  mournful  procession,  keeps  up  to  this 
day  a  lingering  reminiscence  of  the  grim  religious  rite  now 
passed  away. 

Plants,  partaking  with  animals  the  phenomena  of  life  and 
death,  health  and  sickness,  not  unnaturally  have  some  kind* 
of  soul  aecribed  to  them^  In  fact,  the  notion  of  a  vegetable 


*  Mannhardt,  'GOtterwelt  der  Deutschen,  &c.'  vol.  i.  p.  319. 
"  Saint-Foix,  'CEuvres,'  Maestricht,  1778,  vol.  iv.  p.  150. 
'  Chr.  von  Stramberg,  '  Rheinischer  Antiquarius,'  I,  vol.  i.,  Coblonce, 
1851,  p.  203  ;  J.  M.  Kemble,  '  Horse  Ferales,'  p,  66. 


ANIMISM. 


475 


1  of  leading  a 

been  kept  up 

long  togetlMr 

I  the  survival, 

e  at  his  tomb  • 

it  the  French 

36  led  at  the 

pied  in  black, 

Baparison,  he 

ed  with  prse- 

ot  think  this 

e  records  of 

offertory  in 

pses  at  King 

J  service  for 

when  horses 

land  on  their 

V?  Germany 

Dry  of  living 

asimir  Boos 

according  to 

IS  led  in  the 

to  the  grave, 

This  was, 

ce  was  con- 

lat  pathetic 

saddled  and 

)s  up  to  this 

)us  rite  now 

1  of  life  and 
e  some  kincT 
a  vegetable 

519. 

.  i.,  Coblonce, 


soul,  common  to  plantu  and  to  the  higher  oi^anisms  possess- 
ing an  animal  soul  in  addition,  was  familiar  to  medisevai 
philosophy,  and  is  not  yet  forgotten  by  naturalistsr  But  i* 
the  lower  ranges  of  culture,  at  least  within  one  wide  districf" 
of  the  world,  the  souls  of  plants  are  much  more  full;^ 
identified  with  the  souls  of  animalsr  The  Society  Islanders 
seem  to  have  attributed  'varua,'  i.e.  surviving  soul  or 
spirit,  not  to  men  only  but  to  animals  and  plants.^  The 
Dayaks  of  Borneo  not  only  consider  men  and  animals  to 
have  a  spirit  or  living  principle,  whose  departure  from  the 
body  causes  sickness  and  eventually  death,  but  they  also 
give  to  the  rice  its  '  samangat  padi,'  or  '  spirit  of  the 
paddy,'  and  they  hold  feasts  to  retain  this  soul  securely, 
lest  the  crop  should  decay,  ^  The  Karens  say  that  plants  as 
well  as  men  and  animals  have  their  *  1^ '  ('  kelah '),  and 
the  spirit  of  sickly  rice  is  here  also  called  back  like  a  human 
spirit  considered  to  have  left  the  body.  Their  formulas  for 
the  purpose  have  even  been  written  down,  and  this  is  part 
of  one : — '  0  come,  rice  kelah,  come.     Come  to  the  field. 

Come  to  the  rice Come  from  the  West.     Come 

from  the  East.    From  the  throat  of  the  bird,  from  the  maw 

of  the  ape,  from  the  throat  of  the  elephant 

From  all  granaries  come.  O  rice  kelah,  come  to  the  rice.'  ^ 
There  is  reason  to  think  that  the  doctrine  of  the  spirits  of 
plants  lay  deep  in  the  intellectual  history  of  South-East 
Asia,  but  was  in  great  measure  superseded  under  Buddhist 
influence.  The  Buddhist  books  show  that  in  the  early  days 
of  their  religion,  it  was  matter  of  controversy  whether  trees 
had  souls,  and  therefore  whether  they  might  lawfully  be 
injured.  Orthodox  Buddhism  decided  against  the  tree- 
souls,  and  consequently  against  the  scruple  to  harm  them, 
declaring  trees  to  have  no  mind  nor  sentient  principle, 

*  Moerenhout,  *  Voy.  aux  lies  du  Grand  Oc^an,'  vol.  i.  p.  430. 

»  St.  John,  '  Far  East,'  vol.  i.  p.  187. 

'  Mason,  ' Karens,'  in  '  Joum.  As.  Soc.  Bengal,'  1865,  part  ii.  p.  202 ;  Cross 
in  'Joum.  Amer.  Oriental  Soc' vol.  iv.  p.  309.  See  comparison  of  Siamese 
and  Malay  ideas ;  Low  iu  '  Journ.  Ind.  Archip.'  vol.  i.  p.  840. 


\ 


476 


ANIMISM. 


though  admitting  that  certain  dewas  or  spirits  do  reside  in 
the  body  of  trees,  and  speak  from  within  them.     Buddhists 
also  relate  that  a  heterodox  sect  kept  up  the  early  doctrine 
of  the  actual  animate  life  of  trees,  in  connexion  with  which 
may  be  remembered  Marco  Polo's  somewhat  doubtful  state- 
ment as  to  certain  austere  Indians  objecting  to  gi'een  herbs 
for  such  a  reason,  and   some   other  passages  from  later 
writers.  •9ki»«ubjeet  of  the  spizits  of  plantftis  an  obscnre  ^ 
on%  wbether  irom  the  lowor  laoea  not  having  definite^ 
opinioBB^  or  lirom  our  not  finding  it  eaay  to  traee  themr^ 
The  evidence  from  funeral  sacrifices,  so  valuable  as  to  most 
departments  of  early  psychology,  fails  us  here,  from  plants 
^  not  being  thought  suitable  to  send  for  the  service  of  the 
I  dead.2    Yet,  as  we  shall  see  more  fully  elsewhere,  there  are 
two  topics  which  bear  closely  on  the  matter.     On  the  one 
hand,  the  doctrine  of  transmigration  widely  and  clearly  re- 
cognises the  idea  of  trees  or  smaller  plants  being  animated 
by  human  souls  ;  on  the  other,  the  belief  in  tree-spirits  and 
I  the  practice  of  tree-worship  involve  notions  more  or  less 
^  closely  coinciding  with  that   of  tree-souls,  as  when   the 
I  classic  hamadryad  dies  with  her  tree,  or  when  the  Talein 
of  South-East  Asia,  considering  every  tree  to  have  a  demon 
or  spirit,  offers  prayers  before  he  cuts  one  down. 

Thus  far  the  details  of  the  lower  animistic  philosophy 
are  not  very  unfamiliar  to  modern  students.  The  primitive 
view  of  the  souls  of  men  and  beasts,  as  asserted  or  acted  on 
in  the  lower  and  middle  levels  of  culture,  so  far  belongs  to 
current  civilized  thought,  that  those  who  hold  the  doctrine 
to  be  false,  and  the  practices  based  upon  it  futile,  can 
nevertheless  understand  and  sympathise  with  the  lower 
nations  to  whom  they  are  matters  of  the  most  sober  and 
'  serious  conviction.  Nor  is  even  the  notion  of  a  separable 
J  spirit  or  soul  as  the  cause  of  life  in  plants  too  incongruous 

*  Hardy,  'Manual of Budhism,' pp.  291,  443;  Bastian,  'Oestl.  Asien,' vol. 
ii.  p.  184 ;  Marco  Polo,  book  iii.  ch.  xxii  (compare  various  readings) ; 
Meiners,  vol.  i.  p.  215  ;  vol.  ii.  p.  799. 

"  Malay  evidence  has  since  been  noticed  by  Wilken, '  Het  Animisme  bij 
den  Yolken  van  den  Indischen  Archipel,'  p.  104.  [Note  to  .3rd  edition.] 


ANIMISM. 


477 


do  reside  in 

Buddhists 

trly  doctrine 

with  which 

ubtful  state- 

gi'een  herbs 

I  from  later 

»  an  obftotire  » 

ing  definite'^ 

braee  thenK^ 

e  as  to  most 

from  plants 

rvice  of  the 

re,  there  are 

On  the  one 

i  clearly  re- 

ig  animated 

s-spirits  and 

Qore  or  less 

when   the 

the  Talein 

ive  a  demon 

philosophy 

e  primitive 

or  acted  on 

belongs  to 

le  doctrine 

futile,  can 

the   lower 

sober  and 

separable 

licongruous 

1.  Asien,'  vol. 
19  readings) ; 

Lnimisme  bij 
I  edition.] 


/ 


s 


with  ordinary  ideas  to  be  readily  appreciable.  But  the 
theory  of  souls  in  the  lower  culture  stretches  beyond  this 
limit,  io  take  in  a  conception  much  stranger  to  modern 
thought.  Certain  high  savage  races  distinctly  hold,  and  a 
large  proportion  of  other  savage  and  barbarian  races  make 
a  more  or  less  close  approach  to,  a  theory  of  separable  and 
surviving  souls  or  spirits  belonging  to  stocks  and  stones, 
weapons,  boats,  food,  clothes,  ornaments,  and  other  objects 
which  to  us  are  not  merely  soulless  but  lifeless. 

Yet,  strange  as  such  a  notion  may  seem  to  us  at  first 
sight,  if  we  place  ourselves  by  an  eflfort  in  the  intellectual 
position  of  an  uncultu  ""ad  tribe,  and  examine  the  theory  of 
object-souls  from  their  point  of  view,  we  shall  hardly  pro- 
nounce it  irrational.  In  discussing  the  origin  of  myth, 
some  account  has  been  already  given  of  the  primitive  stage 
of  thought  in  which  personality  and  life  are  ascribed  not  to 
men  and  beasts  only,  but  to  things.  It  has  been  shown  how 
what  we  call  inanimate  obj  ects — rivers,  stones,  trees,  weapons , 
and  so  forth — are  treated  as  living  intelligent  beings,  talked 
to,  propitiated,  punished  for  the  harm  they  do.  Hume, 
whose  '  Natural  History  of  Eeligion '  is  perhaps  more  than 
any  other  work  the  source  of  modern  opinions  as  to  the 
development  of  religion,  comments  on  the  influence  of  this 
personifying  stage  of  thought.  'There  is  an  universal 
tendency  among  mankind  to  conceive  all  beings  like  them- 
selves, and  to  transfer  to  every  object  those  qualities  with 
which  they  are  familiarly  acquainted,  and  of  which  they 

are    intimately  conscious The  unknoivn  causes, 

which  continually  employ  their  thought,  appearing  always 
in  the  same  aspect,  are  all  apprehended  to  be  of  the  same 
kind  or  species.  Nor  is  it  long  before  we  ascribe  to  them 
thought  and  reason,  and  passion,  and  sometimes  even  the 
limbs  and  figures  of  men,  in  order  to  bring  them  nearer  to  a 
resemblance  with  ourselves.'  Augusta  Comte  has  ventured 
to  bring  such  a  state  of  thought  under  terms  of  strict  defini- 
tion in  his  conception  of  the  primary  mental  condition  of 
mankind — a  state  of '  pure  fetishism,  constantly  character- 


478 


ANIMISM. 


ized  by  the  free  and  direct  exercise  of  our  primitive  tend- 
ency to  conceive  all  external  bodies  soever,  natural  or 
artificial,  as  animated  by  a  life  essentially  analogous  to  our 
own,  with  mere  differences  of  intensity.'  *  Our  comprehen- 
sion of  the  lower  stages  of  mental  culture  depends  much  on 
the  thoroughness  with  which  we  can  appreciate  this  primi- 
tive, childlike  conception,  and  in  this  our  best  guide  may 
be  the  memory  of  our  own  childish  days.  He  who  recol- 
lects when  there  was  still  personality  to  him  in  posts  and 
sticks,  chairs  and  toys,  may  well  underatand  how  the  infant 
philosophy  of  mankind  could  extend  the  notion  of  vitality 
to  what  modern  science  only  recognises  as  lifeless  things ; 

_  thus  one  main  part  of  the  lower  animistic  doctrine  as  to  souls 
of  objects  is  accounted  for.  The  doctrine  requires  for  its  full 
conception  of  a  soul  not  only  life,  but  also  a  phantom  or 

:  apparitional  spirit ;  this  development,  however,  follows  with- 

■  out  difficulty,  for  the  evidence  of  dreams  and  visions  applies 
to  the  spirits  of  objects  in  much  the  same  manner  as  to 
human  ghosts.  Everyone  who  has  seen  visions  while  light- 
headed in  fever,  everyone  who  has  ever  dreamt  a  dream,  has 

I  seen  the  phantoms  of  objects  as  well  as  of  persons.  How  th^ 
can  we  charge  the  savage  with  far-fetched  absurdity  foif 
taking  into  his  philosophy  and  religion  an  opinion  which'" 
rests  on  the  very  evidence  of  his  senseir?  The  notion  is  im- 
plicitly recognised  in  his  accounts  of  ghosts,  which  do  not 
come  naked,  but  clothed,  and  even  armed ;  of  course  there 
must  be  spirits  of  garments  and  weapons,  seeing  that  the 
spirits  of  men  come  bearing  them.  It  will  indeed  place 
savage  philosophy  in  no  unfavourable  light,  if  we  compare 
this  extreme  animistic  development  of  it  with  the  popular 
opinion  still  surviving  in  civilized  countries,  as  to  ghosts 

I  and  the  nature  of  the  human  soul  as  connected  with  them. 

When  the  ghost  of  Hamlet's  father  appeared  armed  cap-a-pe, 

'  Such  was  the  very  armour  he  had  on, 
When  he  the  ambitious  Norway  combated.' 

'  Hume,  '  Nat.  Hist,  of  Rel.'  sec.  ii. ;  Comte,  '  Philosophie  Positive,'  vol. 
V.  p.  30. 


mitive  tend- 

,  natural  or 

ogous  to  our 

'  comprehen- 

ads  much  on 

e  this  primi- 

■j  guide  may 

e  who  recol- 

in  posts  and 

iw  the  infant 

n  of  vitality 

'eless  things ; 

le  as  to  souls 

•es  for  its  full 

phantom  or 

follows  with- 

sions  applies 

lanner  as  to 

I  while  light- 

a  dream,  has 

How  th^ 

|bsurdity  for 

inion  which-" 

otion  is  im- 

hich  do  not 

ourse  there 

g  that  the 

deed  place 

e  compare 

|the  popular 

rS  to  ghosts 

with  them. 

d  cap-a-pe, 


Positive,' vol. 


ANIMISM. 


479 


And  thus  it  is  a  habitual  feature  of  the  ghost-stories  of  the 
civilized,  as  of  the  savage  world,  that  the  ghost  comes 
dressed,  and  even  dressed  in  well-known  clothing  worn  in 
life.  Hearing  as  well  as  sight  testifies  to  the  phantoms  of 
objects :  the  clanking  of  ghostly  chains  and  the  rustling  of 
ghostly  dresses  are  described  in  the  literature  of  appari- 
tions. Now  by  the  savage  theory,  according  to  which  the 
ghost  and  his  clothes  are  alike  real  and  objective,  and  by 
the  modem  scientific  theory,  according  to  which  both  ghost 
and  garment  ai'e  alike  imaginary  and  subjective,  the  facts  of 
apparitions  are  rationally  met.  But  the  modern  vulgar  who 
ignore  or  repudiate  the  notion  of  ghosts  of  things,  while 
retaining  the  notion  of  ghosts  of  persons,  have  fallen  into  a 
hybrid  state  of  opinion  which  has  neither  the  logic  of  the 
■  savage  nor  of  the  civilized  philosopher. 

Among  the  lower  races  of  mankind,  three  have  been  ob- 
served to  hold  most  explicitly  and  distinctly  the  doctrine  of 
object-souls.-  These  are  the  Algonquin  tribes,  extending 
over  a  great  disti'ict  of  North  America,  the  islanders 
of  the  Fijian  group,  and  the  Karens  of  Birma.  Among 
the  Indians  of  North  America,  Father  Charlevoix  wrote,  souls 
are,  as  it  were,  the  shadows  and  the  animated  images  of 
the  body,  and  it  is  by  a  consequence  of  this  principle  that 
they  believe  everything  to  be  animate  in  the  universe.  This 
missionary  was  especially  conversant  with  the  Algonquins, 
and  it  was  among  one  of  their  tribes,  the  Ojibwas,  that 
Keating  noticed  the  opinion  that  not  only  men  and  beasts 
have  souls,  but  inorganic  things,  such  as  kettles,  &c.,  have 
in  them  a  similar  essence.  In  the  same  district  Father  Le 
Jeune  had  described,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  the  belief 
that  the  souls,  not  only  of  men  and  animals,  but  of  hatchets 
and  kettles,  had  to  cross  the  water  to  the  Great  Village,  out 
where  the  sun  sets.^    In  interesting  correspondence  with 

'  Charlevoix,  vol.  vi.  p.  74  ;  Keating,  '  Long's  Exp.'  vol.  ii.  p.  154  ;  Le 
Jeune,  '  Nouvelle  France,'  p.  59  ;  also  Waitz,  vol.  iii.  p.  199  ;  Gregg. 
*  Commerce  of  Prairies,'  vol.  ii.  p.  244 ;  see  Addison's  No.  66  of  the 
'  Spectator.' 


\ 


480 


AKIMISM. 


t*    f 


r. 


this  quaint  thought  is  Mariner's  description  of  the  Fiji  doc- 
trine— '  If  an  animal  or  a  plant  die,  its  soul  immediately 
goes  to   Bolotoo ;   if  a  stone  or  any  other  substance  is 
broken,  immortality  is  equally  its  reward  ;    nay,  artificial 
bodies  have  equal  good  luck  with  men,  and  hogs,  and  yams. 
If  an  axe  or  a  chisel  is  worn  out  or  broken  up,  away  flies  its 
soul  for  the  service  of  the  gods.     If  a  house  is  taken  down 
or  any  way  destroyed,  its  immortal  part  will  find  a  situation 
on  the  plains  of  Bolotoo ;    and,  to  confirm  this  doctrine, 
the  Fiji  people  can  show  you  a  sort  of  natural  well,  or  deep 
hole  in  the  ground,  at  one  of  their  islands,  across  the  bottom 
/      of  which  runs  a  stream  of  water,  in  which  you  may  clearly 
perceive  the  souls  of  men  and  women,  beasts  and  plants,  of 
stocks  and  stones,  canoes  and  houses,  and  of  all  the  broken 
utensils  of  this  frail  world,  swimming,  or  rather  tumbling 
along  one  over  the  other  pell-mell  into  the  regions  of  im- 
mortality.'     A  full  generation    later,  the   Eev.   Thomas 
Williams,  while  remarking  that  the  escape  of  brutes  and 
lifeless  substances  to  the  spirit-land  of  Mbulu  does  not  re- 
ceive universal  credit  among  the  Fijians,  nevertheless  con- 
firms the  older  account  of  it: — '  Those  who  profess  to  have 
seen  the  souls  of  canoes,  houses,  plants,  pots,  or  any  artifi- 
cial bodies,  swimming  with  other  relics  of  this  frail  world 
on  the  stream  of  the  Kauvandra  well,  which  bears  them 
into  the  regions  of  immortality,  believe  this  doctrine  as  a 
matter  of  course ;  and  so  do  those  who  have  seen  the  foot- 
marks left  about  the  same  well  by  the  ghosts  of  dogs,  pigs, 
&c.'  ^    The  theory  among  the  Karens  is  stated  by  the  Rev. 
E.  B.  Cross,  as  follows : — '  Every   object  is  supposed  to 
have  its  "  kelah."  Axes  and  knives,  as  well  as  trees  and 
plants,  are  supposed  to  have  their  separate  "  kelahs." '     '  The 
Karen,  with  his  axe  and  cleaver,  may  build  his  house,  cut 
his  rice,  and  conduct  his  affairs,  after  death  as  before.'  ^ 


'  Marinor,  '  Tonga  Is.'  vol.  ii.  p.  129;  Williams,  '  Fiji,'  vol.  i.  p.  242. 
Similar  ideas  in  Tahiti,  Cook's  3rd  Voy.  vol.  ii.  p.  166. 

'  Cross,  1.  c.  pp.  309,  813  ;  Mason,  1.  c.  p.  202.  Compare  Meiners,  vol.  i. 
p.  144  ;  Gastrin,  'Finn.  Myth.'  pp.  161-3. 


the  Fiji  doc- 
immediately 
substance  is 
nay,  artificial 
g8,and  yams, 
away  flies  its 
!  taken  down 
nd  a  situation 
this  doctrine, 
i  well,  or  deep 
)ss  the  bottom 

I  may  clearly 
md  plants,  of 
lU  the  broken 
iher  tumbling 
egions  of  im- 
Rev.  Thomas 
3f  brutes  and 

II  does  not  re- 
srtheless  con- 
ofess  to  have 
or  any  artifi- 
.8  frail  world 

bears  them 
doctrine  as  a 
een  the  foot- 
of  dogs,  pigs, 

by  the  Eev. 

supposed  to 
as  trees  and 

,hs." '     '  The 
|is  house,  cut 

before.'  ^ 

vol.  i.  p.  242. 
I  Meiners,  vol.  i. 


ANIMISM. 


481 


As  so  many  races  perform  funeral  saoriiioeB  of  men  and 
animals,  in  order  to  dispateh  their  souls  for  the  servioe  oi 
the  soul  of  the  deceased,  so  tribes  who  hold  this  doctrine  of  ■ 
object-souls  very  rationally  sacrifice  objects,  in  order  to 
transmit  these  souls.*'  Among  the  Algonquin  tribes,  the 
sacrifice  of  objects  for  the  dead  was  a  habitual  rite,  as  when 
we  read  of  a  warrior's  corpse  being  buried  with  musket  and 
war-club,  calumet  and  war-paint,  and  a  public  address  being 
made  to  the  body  at  burial  concerning  his  future  path ; 
while  in  like  manner  a  woman  would  be  buried  with  her 
paddle  and  kettle,  and  the  carrying-strap  for  the  everlasting 
burden  of  her  heavily-laden  life.  That  the  purpose  of  such 
offerings  is  the  transmission  of  the  object's  spirit  or  phantom 
to  the  possession  of  the  man's  is  explicitly  stated  as  early 
as  1 623  by  Father  Lallemant ;  when  the  Indians  buried 
kettles,  furs,  &c.,  with  the  dead,  they  said  that  the  bodies 
of  the  things  remained,  but  their  souls  went  to  the  dead  who 
used  them.  The  whole  idea  is  graphically  illustrated  in 
the  following  Ojibwa  tradition  or  myth.  Gitchi  Gauzini 
was  a  chief  who  lived  on  the  shores  of  Lake  Superior,  and 
once,  after  a  few  days'  illness,  he  seemed  to  die.  He  had 
been  a  skilful  hunter,  and  had  desired  that  a  fine  gun  which 
he  possessed  should  be  buried  with  him  when  he  died.  But 
some  of  his  friends  not  thinking  him  really  dead,  his  body 
was  not  buried ;  his  widow  watched  him  for  four  days,  he 
came  back  to  life,  and  told  his  story.  After  death,  he  said, 
his  ghost  travelled  on  the  broad  road  of  the  dead  toward 
the  happy  land,  passing  over  great  plains  of  luxuriant 
herbage,  seeing  beautiful  groves,  and  hearing  the  songs  of 
innumerable  birds,  till  at  last,  from  the  summit  of  a  hill,  he 
caught  sight  of  the  distant  city  of  the  dead,  far  across  an 
intermediate  space,  partly  veiled  in  mist,  and  spangled  with 
glittering  lakes  and  streams.  He  came  in  view  of  herds  of 
stately  deer,  and  moose,  and  other  game,  which  with  little 
fear  walked  near  his  path.  But  he  had  no  gun,  and  re- 
membering hoAV  he  had  requested  his  friends  to  put  his  gun 
in  his  grave,  he  turned  back  to  go  and  fetch  it.     Then  he 

VOL.  I.  I  i 


18a 


ANIMISM. 


tl 


1^  .  ^i'> 


I':: 


mot  face  to  face  the  train  of  men,  women,  and  chiMron  who 
were  (  avelling  toward  the  city  of  the  dead.  They  were 
heavily  laden  with  guns,  pipes,  kettles,  meats,  and  other 
articles;  women  >*  "^  carrying  baskot-work  and  painted 
paddles,  and  little  boys  had  their  ornamented  clubs  and 
their  hows  and  arrows,  the  presents  of  their  friends.  Re- 
fusing a  gun  which  an  overburdened  traveller  offered  him, 
the  ghost  of  Gitchi  Oauzlni  trav(!lled  back  in  quest  of  his 
own,  and  at  last  reached  the  pliice  where  ho  had  died. 
There  ho  could  see  only  a  groat  fire  before  and  around  him 
and  finding  the  flames  barring  his  passage  on  every  side,  ne 
made  a  desperate  leap  through,  and  awoke  from  his  trance. 
Having  concluded  his  story,  he  gave  his  auditors  this 
counsel,  that  they  should  no  longer  deposit  so  many 
burdensome  things  with  the  dead,  delaying  them  on  their 
journey  to  the  place  of  repose,  so  that  almost  everyone  he 
met  complained  bitterly.  It  would  be  wiser,  he  said,  only 
to  put  such  things  in  the  grave  as  the  deceased  was  par- 
ticularly attached  to,  'T  made  a  formal  request  to  have 
deposited  with  him.' 

With  purpose  no  less  distinct,  when  a  dead  Fijian  chief 
is  laid  out  oiled  and  painted  and  dressed  as  in  life,  a  heavy 
club  is  placed  ready  near  his  right  hand,  which  holds  one 
or  more  of  the  much-prized  carved  '  whale's  tooth '  orna- 
ments. The  club  is  to  serve  for  defence  against  the 
adversaries  who  await  his  soul  on  the  road  to  Mbulu,  seek- 
ing to  slay  and  eat  him.  We  hear  of  a  Fijian  taking  a 
club  from  a  companion's  grave,  and  remavkini?  in  explana- 
tion to  a  missionary  who  stood  by,  'The  <;i;<ns;  m  the  club 
has  gone  with  him.'  The  purpose  oft-  x''  Ic  tooth  is 
this ;  on  the  road  to  the  land  of  the  dead,  near  the  solitary 
hill  of  Takiveleyawa,  there  stands  a  ghostly  pandanus-tree, 
and  the  spirit  of  the  dead  man  is  to  throw  the  spirit  of  the 
whale's  tooth  at  this  tree,  having  struck  which  he  is  to 
'£   j/id  t'le  hill  and  await  the  coming  of  the  spirits  of  his 

'  iA..oolcraft,  '  Ir.ijan  Tribes,'  part  ii.  p.  68  ;  'Algic  Res.'  vol.  ii.  p.  128; 
Li  Uejuaut  in  '  ReL  sits  J^suites  dans  la  Nouvelle  France,'  1626,  p.  3. 


chiMion  who 

They  were 

is,  and  other 

and  painted 
jd  clubs  and 
■rionds.     Re- 

offored  him, 

quest  of  his 
10  had   died. 

around  iiim 
jvery  side,  ue 
m  his  trance, 
auditors  this 
it  80  many 
lem  on  their 

everyone  he 
he  said,  only 
sed  was  par- 
lest  to  have 

Hjian  chief 

ife,  a  heavy 

holds  one 

tooth'  orna- 

against    the 

yibulu,  seek- 

an  taking  a 

in  explana- 

the  club 

cooth  is 

ihe  solitary 

idanus-tree, 

spirit  of  the 

ch  he  is  to 

)irits  of  his 

vol.  ii.  p.  128 ; 
126,  p.  '3. 


ANIMISM. 


483 


strangled  wives.'     The  funeral  rites  of  the  Karens  oomplote 
the  present  group.     Thoy  kept  up  what  seeras  a  cio<ir  sur- 
vival from  actual  human  and  animal  sacrifice,  fastening  up 
near  an  important  person's  grave  a  slave  and  a  pony  ;  these 
ii'  miiably  released  themselves,  and  the  slave  became  hene-'- 
fo»^h  a  free  man.     Moreover,  the  practice  of  placing  food, 
in^/iements  and  utensils,  and  valuables  of  gold  and  silver, 
net^V  the  remains  of  the  deceased,  was  general  among  them.'^ 
I  Now  the  Bacrifioe  of  property  for  the  dead  is  one  of  the 
great  religious  rites  of  the  worldljare  we  then  jtistifled  in 
asserting  that  all  men  who  abaflclon  or  destroy  property  an*" 
a  funeral  ceremony  believe  the  articles  to  have  spirits,  wHioK 
spirits  are  transmitted  to  the  deceased  ?    Not  so ;  i     is 
notorious  that  there  are  people  who  recognize  no  such  theo  ry,- 
but  who  nevertheless  depositjifferings  with  thedeani.    Afti  •- 
tionate  fancy  or  symbolism,  a  horror  of  the  association  cf 
death  loading  the  survivors  to  get  rid  of  anything  that  even 
suggests  the  dreadful  thought,  a  desire  to  abandon  the  dead 
man's  property,  an  idea  that  the  hovering  ghost  may  take 
pleasure  in  or  make  use  of  the  gifts  left  for  him,  all  these 
are  or  may  be  efficient  motives.^    Yet,  having  made  full 

'  Williams,  '  Fiji,'  vol.  i.  pp.  188,  243,  246  ;  Alger,  p.  82 ;  Soemann, 
'Viti,'p,  22!). 

*  '.Tourn.  Ind.  Archip.'  new  aeries,  vol.  ii.  p.  421. 

'  For  some  cases  in  which  horror  or  abnegation  are  assigned  as  motives  for 
abandonment  >f  the  dead  man's  property,  see  Humboldt  and  Bonpland, 
vol.  V.  p.  62(5.  Dalton  in  Mourn.  As.  Soc.  Bengal,' lbC6,  part  ii.  p.  I'Jl,  &o.; 
Earl,  'PapuaiiH,'  p.  108  ;  Callaway,  'Rol.  of  Amazulu,'p.  13;  Egede,  'Green- 
land,' p.  Ifil  ;  Cranz,  p.  301  ;  Loskiel,  'Ind.  N.  A.'  part  i.  p.  64,  but  see 
p.  76.  The  destruction  or  abandonment  of  the  whole  property  of  the  dead 
mayplausibly,  whether  justly  or  not,  be  explained  by  horror  or  abnegation; 
but  thesi^  motives  do  not  generally  apply  to  cases  where  only  part  of  the 
property  is  sacrificed,  or  now  objects  are  provided  expressly,  and  hero  the 
Berviee  of  the  doad  seems  the  reasonable  motive.  Thus,  at  the  funeral  of 
a  Garo  girl,  earthen  vessels  wore  broken  as  they  were  thrown  in  above  the 
buried  asln'S.  '  Th*>y  said,  the  spirit  of  the  girl  would  not  benefit  by  them 
if  they  w<re  given  unbroken,  but  for  her  the  fragments  would  unite  again.' 
(Dalton  Des<riptivi  Ethnology  of  Bengal,'  p.  67.)  The  mere  fact  of  break- 
ing or  destruction  of  objects  at  funerals  does  not  carry  its  own  explanation, 
for  it  is  equally  applicable  to  sentimental  abandonment  and  to  practical 
traasiiiission  of  the  spirit  of  the  object,  as  a  man  is  killed  to  liberate  his  soul. 

I  i  2 


i 


484 


ANIMISM. 


allowance  for  all  this,  we  shall  find  good  reason  to  judge  that 
many  other  peoples,  though  they  may  never  have  stated  the 
theory  of  object-souls  in  the  same  explicit  way  as  the 
Algonquins,  Fijians,  and  Karens,  have  recognized  it  with 
more  or  less  distinctness.  It  has  given  me  the  more  con- 
fidence in  this  opinion  to  find  it  held,  under  proper  reserva- 
tion, by  Mr.  W.  R.  Alger,  an  American  investigator,  who 
in  a  treatise  entitled  '  A  Critical  History  of  the  Doctrine  of 
a  Future  Life '  has  discussed  the  ethnography  of  his  sub- 
ject with  remarkable  learning  and  sagacity.  '  The  barbarian 
brain,'  he  writes,  'seems  to  have  been  generally  impreg- 
nated with  the  feeling  that  every  thing  else  has  a  ghost  as 
well  as  man,  .  .  .  The  custom  of  burning  or  burying  things 
with  the  dead  probably  arose,  in  some  cases  at  least,  from 
the  supposition  that  every  object  has  its  manes.'  ^  It  will 
be  desirable  briefly  to  examine  further  the  subject  of  funeral 
offerings,  as  bearing  on  this  interesting  question  of  early 
psychology. 

A  wide  survey  of  funeral  sacrifices  over  the  world  will 
plainly  show  one  of  their  most  usual  motives  to  be  a  more 


i     i 


For  good  eases  of  the  breaking  of  vessels  and  utensils  given  to  the  dead,  see 
'Journ.  Ind.  Archip.' vol.  i.  p.  325  (Mintira^ ;  Orey,  'Australia,'  vol.  i. 
p.  322  ;  G.  F.  Moore,  '  Vocab.  W.  Australia,'  p.  13  (Australians);  Markham 
in  '  Tr.  Eth.  See.'  vol.  iii.  p.  188  (Ticunas'  ;  St.  John,  vol.  i.  p.  68  (Dayaks) ; 
Ellis,  'Madagascar,'  vol.  i.  p.  254;  Schoolcraft,  'Indian  Tribes,'  part  i. 
p.  84  (Appalaehicola)  ;  D.  Wilson,  '  Prehistoric  Man,'  vol.  ii.  p.  li)ti  (N.  A.  I. 
and  ancient  graves  in  England'.  Cases  of  formal  sacrifice  whero  objects 
are  offered  to  the  dead  and  taken  away  again,  arc  generally  doubtful  as  to 
motive ;  see  Spix  and  Martius,  vol.  i.  p.  383 ;  Martins,  vol.  1.  p.  485  (Brazilian 
Tribes)  ;  Moffat,  'S.  Africa,'  p.  308  (Bechuanas)  ;  '  Journ.  Ind.  Archip.'  vol. 
iii.  p.  149  (Kayans). 

'  Alger,  '  Future  Life,'  p.  81.  Ho  treats,  however  (p.  76),  as  intentionally 
symbolic  the  rite  of  the  Winnebagos,  who  light  fires  on  the  grave  to  pro- 
vide night  after  night  camp-fires  for  the  soul  on  its  far  journey  (^Schoolcraft, 
'  Ind.  Tr.'  vol.  iv.  p.  55  ;  the  idea  is  introduced  in  Longfellow's  '  Hiawatha,' 
xix.).  I  agree  with  Dr.  Brinton  ^'  Myths  of  New  World,'  p.  241^  that  to 
look  for  recondite  symbolic  meaning  in  these  simple  childish  rites  is  un- 
reasonable. There  was  a  similar  Aztec  rite  (Clavigero,  vol.  ii.  p.  94).  Tho 
Mintira  light  fires  on  the  grave  for  the  spirit  to  warm  itself  at  ('Journ.  Ind. 
Archip.'  vol.  i.  p.  325*,  see  p.  271,  and  compare  Martius,  vol.  i.  p.  491).  So 
Australians  will  light  a  fire  near  their  camp  at  night  for  the  ghost  of  some 
lately  dead  relative  to  sit  by(Millett,  'Australian  Parsonage,'  p.  76). 


ANIMISM. 


485 


into  judge  that 
have  stated  the 
it  way  as  the 
•gnized  it  with 

the  more  con- 
proper  reserva- 
restigator,  who 
the  Doctrine  of 
hy  of  his  sub- 
•  The  barbarian 
lerally  impreg- 

has  a  ghost  as 
burying  things 
I  at  least,  from 
mes.'  ^  It  will 
bject  of  funeral 
estion  of  early 

the  world  will 
3  to  be  a  more 


on  to  the  dead,  see 

Australia,'  vol.  i. 

alians);  Markham 

.  p.  (18  (Dayaks) ; 

Tribes,'  part  i. 

ii.  p.  lOti  (N.  A.  I. 

fico  where  objects 

lly  doubtful  as  to 

p.  -185  (Brazilian 

nd.  Archlp.'  vol. 

as  intentionally 
the  grave  to  pro- 
ney  (Schoolcraft, 
i)w's  'Hiawatha,' 

p.  241,  that  to 
lish  rites  is  un- 

ii.  p.  94).  The 
at  ('Journ.  Ind. 
ol.  i.  p.  491).  So 
he  ghost  of  some 
?e,'  p.  76). 


or  less  defined  notion  of  benefiting  the  deceased,  whether 
out  of  kindness  to  him  or  from  fear  of  his  displeasure.  How 
such  an  intention  may  have  taken  this  practical  shape  we  can 
perhaps  vaguely  guess,  familiar  as  we  are  with  a  state  of  mind 
out  of  which  funeral  sacrifices  could  naturally  have  sprung. 
The  man  is  dead,  but  it  is  still  possible  to  fancy  him  alive, 
to  take  his  cold  hand,  to  speak  to  him,  to  place  his  chair  at 
the  table,  to  bury  suggestive  mementos  in  his  coffin,  to 
throw  flowers  into  his  grave,  to  hang  wreaths  of  everlastings 
on  his  tomb.  The  Cid  may  be  set  on  Babieca  with  his 
sword  Tizona  in  his  hand,  and  carried  out  to  do  battle  as  of 
old  against  the  unbeliever ;  the  dead  king's  meal  may  be 
carried  in  to  him  in  state,  although  the  chamberlain  must 
announce  that  the  king  does  not  dine  to-day.  Such  child- 
like ignoring  of  death,  such  childlike  make-believe  that  the 
dead  can  still  do  as  heretofore,  may  well  have  led  the  savage 
to  bury  with  his  kinsman  the  weapons,  clothes,  and  orna- 
ments that  he  used  in  life,  to  try  to  feed  the  corpse,  to  put 
a  cigar  in  the  mouth  of  the  skull  before  its  final  burial,  to 
lay  playthings  in  the  infant's  grave.  But  one  thought  be- 
yond would  carry  this  dim  blind  fancy  into  the  range  of 
logical  reasoning.  Granted  that  the  man  is  dead  and  his 
soul  gone  out  of  him,  then  the  way  to  provide  that  departed 
soul  with  food  or  clothes  or  weapons  is  to  bury  or  burn  them 
with  the  body,  for  whatever  happens  to  the  man  may  be 
taken  to  happen  to  the  objects  that  lie  beside  him  and  share 
his  fate,  while  the  precise  way  in  which  the  transmission 
takes  place  may  be  left  undecided.  It  is  possible  that  the 
funeral  sacrifice  customary  among  mankind  may  have  rested 
at  fiist,  and  may  to  some  extent  still  rest,  on  vague  thoughts 
and  imaginations  like  these,  as  yet  fitted  into  no  more 
definite  and  elaborate  philosophic  theory. 

There  are,  however,  two  great  groups  of  cases  of  funeral 
sacrifice,  which  so  logically  lead  up  to  or  involve  the  notion 
of  souls  or  spirits  of  objects,  that  the  sacrificer  himself 
could  hardly  answer  otherwise  a  point-blank  question  as  to 
their  meaning.    The  first  group  is  that  in  which  those  who 


486 


ANIMISM. 


m.h 


\    i 


sacrifice  men  and  beasts  with  the  intention  of  conveying 
their  souls  to  the  other  world,  also  sacrifice  lifeless  things 
indiscriminately  with  them.  The  second  group  is  that  in 
which  the  phantoms  of  the  objects  sacrificed  are  traced  dis- 
tinctly into  the  possession  of  the  human  phantom. 

The  Caribs,  holding  that  after  decease  man's  soul  found 
its  way  to  the  land  of  the  dead,  sacrificed  slaves  on  a  chiefs 
grave  to  serve  him  in  the  new  life,  and  for  the  same  purpose 
buried  dogs  with  him,  and  also  weapons.^  The  Guinea 
negroes,  at  the  funeral  of  a  great  man,  killed  several  wives 
and  slaves  to  serve  him  in  the  other  world,  and  put  finr; 
clothes,  gold  fetishes,  coral,  beads,  and  other  valuables,  iiU'/ 
the  coffin,  to  be  used  there  too.'^  When  the  New  Zealana 
chief  had  slaves  killed  at  his  death  for  his  service,  and  the 
mourning  family  gave  his  chief  widow  a  rope  to  hang  her- 
self with  in  the  woods  and  so  rejoin  her  husband,^  it  is  not 
easy  to  discern  here  a  motive  different  from  that  which 
induced  them  at  the  same  time  to  provide  the  dead  man  also 
with  his  weapons.  Nor  can  an  intellectual  line  well  be 
drawn  between  the  intentions  with  which  the  Tunguz  has 
buried  with  him  his  horse,  his  bow  and  arrows,  his  smoking 
apparatus  and  kettle.  In  the  typical  description  which 
Herodotus  gives  of  the  funeral  of  the  ancient  Scythian 
chiefs,  the  miscellaneous  contents  of  the  burial-mound, 
the  strangled  wife  and  household  servants,  the  horses,  the 
choice  articles  of  property,  the  golden  vessels,  fairly  represent 
the  indiscriminate  purpose  which  actuated  the  barbaric 
sacrifice  of  creatures  and  things.*  So  in  old  Europe,  the 
warrior  with  his  sword  and  spear,  the  horse  with  the  saddle, 
the  hunter's  hound  and  hawk  and  his  bow  and  arrow,  the 
wife  with  her  gay  clothes  and  jewels,  lie  together  in  the 
burial-mound.  Their  common  purpose  has  become  one  of 
the  most  undisputed  inferences  of  Archaeology. 

'  J.  G.  Muller,  'Amer.  Urrelig.'  p.  222,  see  420. 
'  Bosman,  '  Guinea,'  in  Pinkorton,  vol.  xvi.  p,  430. 
'  Polack,  'M.  of  New  Zealanders,'  vol.  ii.  pp.  66,  78,  116,  127. 
*  Goorgi,  'Ru88.  R.'  vol.  i.  p.  266  ;  Herodot.  iv.  71,  see  note  in  Rawlin- 
son's  Tr.  &c.,  &c. 


1  of  conveying 
I  lifeless  things 
[•oup  is  that  in 
are  traced  dis- 
ntom. 

m's  soul  found 

ves  on  a  chiefs 

5  same  purpose 

The  Guinea 

several  wives 

,  and  put  fir.c 

valuables,  uxU) 

New  Zealand 

srvice,  and  the 

B  to  hang  her- 

>and,^  it  is  not 

a  that  which 

dead  man  also 

line  well  be 

e  Tunguz  has 

I,  his  smoking 

iption  which 

mt   Scythian 

urial-mound, 

e  horses,  the 

irly  represent 

ihe   barbaric 

Europe,  the 

the  saddle, 

arrow,  the 

sther  in  the 

lome  one  of 


127. 

ate  in  Rawlin- 


ANIMISM. 


487 


As  for  what  becomes  of  the  objects  sacrificed  for  the  dead, 
there  are  on  record  the  most  distinct  statements  taken  from 
the  sacrificers  themselves.  Although  the  objects  rot  in  the 
grave  or  are  consumed  on  the  pile,  they  nevertheless  come 
in  some  way  into  the  possession  of  the  disembodied  souls 
they  are  intended  for.  Not  the  material  things  themselves, 
but  phantasmal  shapes  corresponding  to  them,  are  carried 
by  the  souls  of  the  dead  on  their  far  journey  beyond  the 
grave,  or  are  used  in  the  world  of  spirits ;  while  sometimes 
the  phantoms  of  the  dead  appear  to  the  living,  bearing 
property  which  they  have  received  by  sacrifice,  or  demand- 
ing something  that  has  been  withheld.  The  Australian 
will  take  his  weapons  with  him  to  his  paradise.^  A  Tas- 
manian,  asked  the  reason  of  a  spear  being  deposited  in  a 
native's  grave,  replied  '  To  fight  with  when  he  is  asleep.'  '^ 
Many  Greenlanders  thought  that  the  kayak  and  arrows 
and  tools  laid  by  a  man's  grave,  the  knife  and  sewing 
implements  laid  by  a  woman's,  would  be  used  in  the  next 
world.^  The  instruments  buried  with  the  Sioux  are  for 
him  to  make  a  living  with  hereafter ;  the  paints  provided 
for  the  dead  Iroquois  were  to  enable  him  to  appear  decently 
in  the  other  world.*  The  Aztec's  water-bottle  was  to  serve 
him  on  the  journey  to  Mictlan,  the  land  of  the  dead ;  the 
bonfire  of  garments  and  baskets  and  spoils  of  war  was 
intended  to  send  them  with  him,  and  somehow  to  protect 
him  against  the  bitter  wind ;  the  offerings  to  the  warrior's 
manes  on  earth  would  reach  him  on  the  heavenly  plains.^ 
Among  the  old  Peruvians,  a  dead  prince's  wives  would 
hang  themselves  in  order  to  continue  in  his  service,  and 
many  of  his  attendants  would  be  buried  in  his  fields  or 
places  of  favourite  resort,  in  order  that  his  soul,  passing 

>  Oldfield  in  '  Tr.  Eth.  Soc.'  vol.  iii.  pp.  228,  245. 
'  Bonwick,  '  Tasmanians,'  p.  97. 
'  Cranz,  '  GrOnland,'  pp.  263,  301. 

*  Schoolcraft,  'Indian  Tribes,'  part  iv.  pp.  55,  65  ;  J.  G.  Miiller,  '  Amer. 
Urrel.'  pp.  88,  287. 

•  Sahagun,  book  iii.  App.  in  Kingsborough,  '  Antiquities  of  Mexico,'  vol. 
vii.  ;  Clavigero,  vol.  ii.  p.  94  ;  Brasseur,  vol.  iii.  pp.  497,  569. 


488 


ANIMISM. 


B3 


*j 


II 


through  those  places,  might  take  their  souls  along  with 
him  for  future  service.  In  perfect  consistency  with  these 
strong  animistic  notions,  the  Peruvians  declared  that  their 
reason  for  sacrifice  of  property  to  the  dead  was  that  they 
'  have  seen,  or  thought  they  saw,  those  who  had  long  been 
dead  walking,  adorned  with  the  things  that  were  buried 
with  them,  and  accompanied  by  their  wives  who  had  been 
buried  alive.'  ^ 

As  definite  an  implication  of  the  spirit  or  phantom  of  an 
object  appears  in  a  recent  account  from  Madagascar,  where 
things  are  buried  to  become  in  some  way  useful  to  the  dead. 
When  King  Radama  died,  it  was  reported  and  firmly 
believed  that  his  ghost  was  seen  one  night  in  the  garden  of 
his  country  seat,  dressed  in  one  of  the  uniforms  which  had 
been  buried  with  him,  and  riding  one  of  the  best  horses 
killed  opposite  his  tomb.^  Turanian  tribes  of  North  Asia 
avow  that  the  motive  of  their  funeral  ofierings  of  horses  and 
sledges,  clothes  and  axes  and  kettles,  flint  and  steel  and 
tinder,  meat  and  butter,  is  to  provide  the  dead  for  his 
journey  to  the  land  of  souls,  and  for  his  life  there.^  Among 
the  Esths  of  Northern  Europe,  the  dead  starts  properly 
equipped  on  his  ghostly  journey  with  needle  and  thread, 
hairbrush  and  soap,  bread  and  brandy  and  coin  ;  a  toy,  if  it 
is  a  child.  And  so  full  a  consciousness  of  practical  meaning 
survived  till  lately,  that  now  and  then  a  soulwould  come  back 
at  night  to  reproach  its  relations  with  not  having  provided 
properly  for  it,  but  left  it  in  distress.*  To  turn  from  these 
now  Europeanized  Tatars  to  a  rude  race  of  the  Eastern 
Archipelago,  among  the  Orang  Binua  of  Sambawa  there 
prevails  this  curious  law  of  inheritance ;  not  only  does  each 
surviving  relative,  father,  mother,  son,  brother,  and  so  forth, 

'  Cieza  de  Leon,  p.  161 ;  Rivoro  and  Tachudi,  '  Peruvian  Antiquities,' 
pp.  186,  200. 

*  Ellis,  '  Madagascar,'  vol.  i.  pp.  254,  42!)  ;  see  Flacourt,  p.  60. 

'  Castren,  'Finn.  Myth.'  p.  118  ;  J.  Billings,  'Exp.  to  N.  Russia,'  p.  129  ; 
see  '  Sanioiedia '  in  Pinkerton,  vol.  i.  p.  532,  and  Lecms,  '  Lapland,'  ibid, 
p.  484. 

*  Boeder,  'Ehsten  Gebraiiche,'  p.  69. 


lis  along  with 
sncy  with  these 
lared  that  their 
was  that  they 
had  long  been 
tt  were  buried 
who  had  been 

phantom  of  an 

agascar,  where 

ul  to  the  dead. 

id  and   firmly 

I  the  garden  of 

'ms  which  had 

le  best  horses 

of  North  Asia 

8  of  horses  and 

and  steel  and 

dead  for  his 

lere."^    Among 

arts  properly 

}  and  thread, 

n  ;  a  toy,  if  it 

iical  meaning 

d  come  back 

ing  provided 

n  from  these 

ihe  Eastern 

bawa  there 

ily  does  each 

and  so  forth, 

n  Antiquities,' 

60. 

Russia,'  p,  129  ; 
Lapland,'  ibid. 


ANIMISM. 


489 


take  his  or  her  proper  share,  but  the  deceased  inherits  one 
share  from  himself,  which  is  devoted  to  his  use  by  eating  the 
animals  at  the  funeral  feast,  burning  everything  else  that  will 
bum,  and  burying  the  remainder.^     In  Cochin  China,  the 
common  people  object  to  celebrating  their  feast  of  the  dead  ^ .. 
on  the  same  day  with  the  upper  classes,  for  this  excellent 
reason,  that  the  aristocratic    souls  might  make   the  ser- 
vant souls   carry  home  their  presents  for  them.     These 
people  employ  all  the  resources  of  theii*  civilization  to  per- 
form with  the  more  lavish  extravagance  the  savage  funeral 
sacrifices.     Here  are  details  from  an  account  published  in 
1849  of  the  funeral  of  a  late  king  of  Cochin  China.     '  When 
the  corpse  of  Thien  Tri  was  deposited  in  the  coffin,  there 
were  also  deposited  in  it  many  things  for  the  use  of  the 
deceased  in  the  other  world,  such  as  his  crown,  turbans, 
clothes  of  all  desci-iptions,  gold,  silver,  and  other  precious 
articles,  rice  and  other  provisions.'     Meals  were  set  out  near 
the  coffin,  and  there  was  a  framed  piece  of  damask  with 
woollen  characters,  the  abode  of  one  of  the  souls  of  the 
defunct.      In  the  tomb,  an  enclosed  edifice  of  stone,  the 
childless  wives  of  the  deceased  were  to  be  perpetually  shut 
up  to  guard  the  sepulchre,  '  and  prepare  daily  the  food  and 
other  things  of  which  they  think  the  deceased  has  need  in 
the  other  life.*     At  the  time  of  the  deposit  of  the  coffin 
in  a  cavern  behind  the  tomb  building,  there  were  burnt 
there  great  piles  of  boats,  stages,  and  everything  used  in 
the  funeral,  '  and  moreover  of  all  the  objects  which  had 
been  in  use  by  the  king  during  his  lifetime,  of  chessmen, 
musical   instruments,  fans,  boxes,  parasols,    mats,    fillets, 
carriages,  &c.  &c.,  and  likewise  a  horse  and  an  elephant  of 
wood  and  pasteboard.'     '  Some  months  after  the  funeral,  at 
two  different  times,  there  were  constructed  in  a  forest  near 
a  pagoda  two  magnificent  palaces  of  wood  with  rich  furnish- 
ings, in  all  things  similar  to  the  palace  which  the  defunct 
monarch  had  inhabited.     Each   palace   was   composed  of 
twenty  rooms,  and  the  most  scrupulous  attention  was  given 

'  '  Journ.  Ind.  Archip.'  vol.  ii.  p.  691 ;  see  vol.  i.  pp.  297,  349. 


490 


ANIMISM. 


in  order  that  nothing  might  be  awanting  necessary  for  a 
palace,  and  these  palaces  were  burned  with  great  pomp,  and 
it  is  thus  that  immense  riches  have  been  given  to  the  flames 
from  the  foolish  belief  that  it  would  serve  the  dead  in  the 
other  world.'  ^ 

Though  the  custom  is  found  among  the  Beduins  of  array- 
ing the  dead  with  turban,  girdle,  and  sword,  yet  funeral 
offerings  for  the  service  of  the  dead  are  by  no  means  con- 
spicuous among  Semitic  nations.  The  mention  of  the  rite 
by  Ezekiel,  while  showing  a  full  sense  of  its  meaning, 
characterizes  it  as  not  Israelite,  but  Gentile  :  '  The  mighty 
fallen  of  the  uncircumcised,  which  are  gone  down  to  Hades 
with  weapons  of  war,  and  they  have  laid  their  swords  under 
theix  heads.'  ^  Among  the  Aryan  nations,  on  the  contrary, 
such  funeral  offerings  are  known  to  have  prevailed  widely 
and  of  old,  while  for  picturesqueness  of  rite  and  definite- 
ness  of  purpose  they  can  scarcely  be  surpassed  even  among 
savages.  Why  the  Brahman's  sacrificial  instruments  are 
to  be  burnt  with  him  on  the  funeral  pile,  appears  from  this 
line  of  the  Veda  recited  at  the  ceremony : '  Yada  gachchatya- 
sunitimetamath^  devanam  vasanirbhav&ti,'  — '  When  he 
Cometh  unto  that  life,  faithfullv  will  he  do  the  service  of 
the  gods.'  ^  Lucian  is  sarcastic,  but  scarcely  unfair,  in 
his  comments  on  the  Greek  funeral  rites,  speaking  of 
those  who  slew  horses  and  slave-girls  and  cupbearers,  and 
burned  or  buried  clothes  and  ornaments,  as  for  use  and 
service  in  the  world  below ;  of  the  meat  and  drink  offerings 
on  the  tombs  which  serve  to  feed  the  bodiless  shades  in 
Hades  ;  of  the  splendid  garments  and  the  garlands  of  the 
dead,  that  they  might  not  sufi'er  cold  upon  the  road,  nor 
be  seen  naked  by  Kerberos.  For  Kerberos  was  intended 
the  honey-cake  deposited  with  the  dead;  and  the  obolus 


*  Bastian,  'Psychologie,'  p.  89  ;  '  Journ.  Ind.  Archip.'  vol.  iii.  p.  337.  For 
other  instances,  see  Bastian,  '  Mensch,'  vol.  ii.  p.  332,  &c.  ;  Alger,  'Future 
Life,'  part  ii. 

»  Klemm,  'C.  G.'  vol.  iv.  p.  159  ;  Ezek.  xxxii.  27. 

'  Max  Muller,  '  Todtenbestattung  der  Brahmanen,'  in  D.  M.  Z.  vol.  ix. 
pp.  vii-xiv. 


necessary  for  a 
[reat  pomp,  and 
3n  to  the  flames 
the  dead  in  the 

duins  of  aiTay- 
rd,  yet  funeral 
no  means  con- 
iion  of  the  rite 
f  its  meaning, 
:   'The  mighty 
iown  to  Hades 
ir  swords  under 
11  the  contrary, 
■evailed  widely 
)  and  definite- 
id  even  among 
istruments  are 
)ears  from  this 
1^  gachchatya- 
— 'When    he 
;he  service  of 
unfair,  in 
speaking  of 
^bearers,  and 
for  use  and 
rink  offerinffs 
iss  shades  in 
■lands  of  the 
le  road,  nor 
\ras  intended 
the  obolus 

iii.  p.  337.  For 
Alger,  'Future 

M.  Z.  vol,  ix. 


ANIMISM. 


491 


placed  in  the   mouth   was  the  toll   for  Charon,  save  at 
Hermione  in  Argolis,  where  men   thought    there  was    a 
short  descent  to  Hades,  and  therefore  provided  the  dead 
with  no  coin  for  the  grim  ferryman.     How  such  ideas  could 
be  realized,  may  be  seen  in  the  story  of  Eukrates,  whose 
dead  wife  appeared  to  him  to  demand  one  of  her  golden 
sandals,  which  had  been  dropped  underneath  the  chest,  and 
so  not  burnt  for  her  with  the  rest  of  her  wardrobe  ;  or  in 
the  story  of  Periander,  whose  dead  wife  Melissa  refused  to 
give  him  an  oracular  response,  for  she  was  shivering  and 
naked,  because  the  garments  buried  with  her  had  not  been 
burnt,  and  so  were  of  no  use,  wherefore  Periander  plundered 
the  Corinthian  women  of  their  best  clothes,  which  he  burned 
in  a  great  trench  with  prayer,  and  now  obtained  his  answer.^ 
The  ancient  Gauls  were  led,  by  their  belief  in  another  life, 
to  burn  and  bury  with  the  dead  things  suited  to  the  living; 
nor  is  the  record  improbable  that  they  transferred  to  the 
world  below  the  repayment  of  loans,  for  even  in  modern 
centuries  the  Japanese  would  borrow  money  in  this  life,  to 
be  repaid  with  heavy  interest  in  the  next.^    The  souls  of  the 
Norse  dead  took  with  them  from  their  earthly  home  servants 
and  horses,  boats  and  ferry-money,  clothes  and  weapons. 
Thus,  in  death  as  in  life,  they  journeyed,  following  the  long 
dark    '  hell-way  '    (helvegr).     The    '  hell-shoon '   (helsko) 
were  bound  upon  the  dead  man's    feet  for  the  toilsome 
journey  ;  and  when  King  Harald  was  slain  in  the  battle  of 
Bravalla,  they  drove  his  war-chariot,  with  the  corpse  upon  it, 
into  the  great  burial-mound,  and  there  they  killed  the  horse, 
and  King  Hring  gave  his  own  saddle  beside,  that  the  fallen 
chief  might  ride  or  drive  to  Walhalla,  as  it  pleased  him.^ 
Lastly,  in  the  Lithuanian  and  Old  Prussian  district,  where 
Aryan  heathendom  held  its  place  in  Europe  so  firmly  and  so 

'  Lucian.  De  Luctu,  9,  &c. ;  Philopseudes,  27  ;  Strabo,  viii.  6,  12  ;  Hero- 
dot.  V.  92  ;  Smith's  '  Die.  Gr.  and  Rom.  Ant.'  art.  *  funus.' 

'  Valer.  Max.  ii.  ;  Mela,  iii.  2.  Froius  (1565)  in  Maffei,  '  Histor.  In- 
dicarum,'  lib.  iv. 

3  Grimm,  'Vorbrennen  der  Leichen,'  pp.  232,  &c.,  247,  &c. ;  'Deutsche 
Myth.'  pp=  795-800. 


'/ 


Cli 


l»*Ti 


ft    . 


11 


1 
i 

■|!t 


492 


ANIMISM. 


late,  accounts  of  funeral  sacrifice  of  men,  and  beasts,  and 
things,  date  on  even  beyond  the  middle  ages.  Even  as  they 
thought  that  men  would  live  again  in  the  resurrection  rich 
or  poor,  noble  or  peasant,  as  on  earth,  so  '  they  believed 
that  the  things  burned  would  rise  again  with  them,  and  serve 
them  as  before.'  Among  these  people  lived  the  Kriwe  Kri- 
weito,  the  great  priest,  whose  house  was  on  the  high  steep 
mountain  Anafielas.  All  the  souls  of  their  dead  must 
clamber  up  this  mountain,  wherefore  they  burned  with  them 
claws  of  bears  and  lynxes  for  their  help.  All  the  souls 
must  pass  through  the  Kriwe' s  house,  and  he  could  describe 
to  the  surviving  relatives  of  each  the  clothes,  and  horse,  and 
weapons  he  had  seen  him  come  with,  and  even  show,  for 
greater  certainty,  some  mark  made  with  lance  or  other 
instrument  by  the  passing  soul.^  Such  examples  of  funeral 
rites  show  a  common  ceremony,  and  to  a  groat  degree  a 
common  purpose,  obtaining  from  savagery  through  bar- 
barism, and  even  into  the  higher  civilization.  Now  could 
we  have  required  from  all  these  races  a  distinct  answer  to 
the  question,  whether  they  believed  in  spirits  of  all  things, 
from  men  and  beasts  down  to  spears  and  cloaks,  sticks 
and  stones,  it  is  likely  that  we  might  have  often  received 
the  same  acknowledgment  of  fully  developed  animism 
which  stands  on  record  in  North  America,  Polynesia,  and 
Birma.  Fftiling^  euch  direct  testimony,  it  is  at  least  jnsti-" 
fiable  to  say  that  the  lower  culture,  by  practically  dealing 
with  object-souls,  goes  far  towards  acknowledging  their 
existence. 

Before  quitting  the  discussion  of  funeral  offerings  for 
transmission  to  the  dead,  the  custom  must  be  traced  to<uits 
£ual  deca^.  It  is  apt  not  to  die  out  suddenly,  but  to  lea^e 
surviving  remnants,  more  or  less  dwindled  in  form  &r^ 
changed  in  meaning.y  The    Kanowits   of  Borneo  talk    of 

'  Dusburg,  'Chronicon  Prussiae,'  iii.  c.  v.  ;  Hanusch,  'Slaw.  Myth.'  pp. 
898,  415  (Aiiafielas  is  the  glass-mountain  of  Slavonic  and  German  myth, 
see  Grimm,  'D.  M.'  p.  796).  Compare  statement  in  St.  Clair  and  Brophy, 
'  Bulgaria,'  p.  61 ;  as  to  food  transmitted  to  dead  in  other  world,  with  more 
probable  explanation,  p.  77. 


ANIMISM. 


493 


and  beasts,  and 

8.    Even  as  they 

esurrection  rich 

'they  believed 

them,  and  serve 

the  Kriwe  Kri- 

L  the  high  steep 

eir  dead   must 

irned  with  them 

All  the  souls 

>  could  describe 

,  and  horse,  and 

even  show,  for 

lance  or  other 

iples  of  funeral 

great  degree  a 

T  through  bar- 

a.     Now  could 

inct  answer  to 

3  of  all  things, 

cloaks,  sticks 

often  received 

)ped   animism 

•olynesia,  and 

ftt  least  justi-" 

ically  dealing 

edging  their 

offerings  for 
traced  to>uits 
but  to  lea^e 
in  form  aind 

rneo  talk    of 

law.  Myth.'  pp. 
German  myth, 
tir  and  Brophy, 
orld,  with  more 


setting  a  man's  property  adrift  for  use  in  the  next  world, 
and  even  go  so  far  as  to  lay  out  his  valuables  by  the  bier, 
but  in  fact  they  only  commit  to  the  frail  canoe  a  few  old 
things  not  worth  plundering.^  8o  in  North  America,  the 
funeral  sacrifice  of  the  Winnebagos  has  come  down  to 
burying  a  pipe  and  tobacco  with  the  dead,  and  sometimes  a 
club  in  a  warrior's  grave,  while  the  goods  brought  and  hung 
up  at  the  burial-place  are  no  longer  left  there,  but  the  sur- 
vivors gamble  for  them.^  The  Santals  of  Bengal  put  two 
vessels,  one  for  rice  and  the  other  for  water,  on  the  dead 
man's  couch,  with  a  few  rupees,  to  enable  him  to  appease 
the  demons  on  the  threshold  of  the  shadowy  world,  but 
when  the  funeral  pile  is  ready  these  things  are  removed.^ 
The  fanciful  art  of  replacing  costly  offerings  by  worthless 
imitations  is  at  this  day  worked  out  into  the  quaintest 
devices  in  China.  As  the  men  and  horses  dispatched  by 
fire  for  the  service  of  the  dead  are  but  paper  figures,  so 
offerings  of  clothes  and  money  may  be  represented  likewise. 
The  imitations  of  Spanish  pillar-dollars  in  pasteboard 
covered  with  tinfoil,  the  sheets  of  tinfoil -paper  which  stand 
for  silver  money,  and  if  coloured  yellow  for  gold,  are  con- 
sumed in  such  quantities  that  the  sham  becomes  a  serious 
reality,  for  the  manufacture  of  mock-money  is  the  trade  of 
thousands  of  women  and  children  in  a  Chinese  city.  In  a 
similar  way  trunks  full  of  property  are  forwarded  in  the 
care  of  the  newly  deceased,  to  friends  who  are  gone  before. 
Pretty  paper  houses,  '  replete  with  every  luxury,'  as  our 
auctioneers  say,  are  burnt  for  the  dead  Chinaman  to  live  in 
hereafter,  and  the  paper  keys  are  burnt  also,  that  he  may 
unfasten  the  paper  locks  of  the  paper  chests  that  hold  the 
ingots  of  gold-paper  and  silver-paper,  which  are  to  be  real- 
ised as  current  gold  and  silver  in  the  other  world,  an  idea 
which,  however,  does  not  prevent  the  careful  survivors  from 


'  St.  John,  '  Far  East,'  vol.  i.  pp.  .'54, 
Pinkerton,  vol.  xvi.  p.  430. 

"  Schoolcraft,  *  Indian  Tribes,'  part  iv.  p.  54, 
3  Hunter,  '  Rural  Bengal,'  p.  210. 


Compare  Bosman,  '  Guinea,' m 


k 


11^ 


494 


ANIMISM. 


collecting  the  ashos  to  re-extract  the  tin  from  them  in  this.' 
Again,  when  the  modern  Hindu  offers  to  his  dead  parent 
funeral  cakes  with  flowers  and  betel,  he  presents  a  woollen 
yarn  which  he  laj's  across  the  cake,  and  naming  the  deceased 
says,  '  May  this  apparel,  made  of  woollen  yarn,  be  accept- 
able to  thee.'  2  Such  facts  as  these  suggest  a  symbolic 
meaning  in  the  practically  useless  offerings  which  Sir  John 
Lubbock  groups  together — the  little  models  of  kayaks  and 
spears  in  Esquimaux  graves,  the  models  of  objects  in 
Egyptian  tombs,  and  the  flimsy  unserviceable  jewelry 
buried  with  the  Etruscan  dead.^ 

Just  as  people  in  Borneo,  after  they  had  become  Moham- 
medans, still  kept  up  the  rite  of  burying  provisions  for  the 
dead  man's  journey,  as  a  mark  of  respect,*  so  the  rite  of 
interring  funeral  offerings  survived  in  Christian  Europe. 
The  ancient  Greek  burial  of  the  dead  with  the  obolus  in  his 
mouth  for  Charon's  toll  is  represented  in  the  modern  Greek 
world,  where  Charon  and  the  funeial  coin  are  both  familiar. 
As  the  old  Prussians  furnished  tVe  dead  with  spending- 
money  to  buy  refreshment  on  his  weary  journey,  so  to  this 
day  German  peasants  bury  a  corpse  with  money  in  his  mouth 
or  hand,  a  fourpenny-piece  or  so.  Similar  little  funeral 
offerings  of  coin  are  recorded  in  the  folklore-books  else- 
where in  Europe.'  Christian  funeral  offerings  of  this  kind 
are  mostly  trifling  in  value,  and  doubtful  as  to  the  meaning 
with  which  they  were  kept  up.  The  early  Christians  re- 
tained the  heathen  custom  of  placing  in  the  tomb  such 
things  as  articles  of  the  toilette  and  children's  playthings ; 
modern  Greeks  would  place  oars  on  a  shipman's  grave,  and 

'  Davis,  ' Chinese,'  vol.  i.  p.  '2/6  ;  Doolittle,  vol.  i.  p.  198  ;  vol.  ii.  p.  275  ; 
Bastian,  '  Mensch,'  vol.  ii.  p.  334  ;  see  Marco  Polo,  book  ii.  ch.  Ixviii. 

*  Colebrooke,  'Essays,'  vol.  i.  pp.  Kil,  161>. 

'  Lubbock,  'Prehistoric  Times,'  p.  142;  Wilkinson,  'Ancient  Eg.' vol. 
ii.  p.  319. 

*  Beeckmann,  'Voy.  to  Borneo,'  in  Pinkorton,  vol.  xi.  p.  110. 

'  Politis,  'Neohellen.  Mythologia,' vol.  i.  parti,  p.  266  ;  Hartknoch,  'Alt. 
und  Neues  Proussen,'  part  i.  p.  ISI  ;  Grimm,  'D.  M.'  pp.  791-5  ;  Wuttke, 
'Deutsche  Volksaberglaube,'  p.  212;  Rocliholz,  'Deutscher  Glaube,'  &c. 
vol.  i.  p.  187,  &c.  ;  Maury,  '  Magio,'  &c,  p.  158  (France). 


n  them  in  this.' 
is  dead  parent 
lents  a  woollen 
ig  the  deceased 
arn,  be  accept- 
3st  a  symbolic 
vhich  Sir  John 
of  kayaks  and 
of  objects  in 
leabJo   jewelry 

pcome  Moham- 
viaions  for  the 
so  the  rite  of 
istian  Europe, 
e  obolus  in  his 
modern  Greek 
i  both  familiar. 
riih.  spending- 
ley,  so  to  this 
Y  in  his  mouth 
little  funeral 
e-books  else- 
^  of  this  kind 
)  the  meaning 
hristians  re- 
tomb   such 
playthings ; 
's  grave,  and 

vol.  ii.  p.  275  ; 
|ch.  Ixviii. 

icient  Eg.'  vol. 

1 110. 

[irtknoch,  'Alt. 
]l-5  ;  Wuttke, 
Ir  Glaube,*  &c. 


ANIMISM. 


495 


other  such  tokens  for  other  crafts ;  the  beautiful  classic  rite 
of  scattering  flowers  over  the  dead  still  holds  its  place  in 
Europe.'  WlHktever  may  have  been  the  thoughts  which* 
first  prompted  thetie  kindly  ceremonies,  they  were  thoughts- 
belonging  to  far  pm-Ohristian  ages^'  The  change  of  sacri- 
fice from  its  early  significance  is  shown  among  the  Hindus, 
who  have  turned  it  to  account  for  purposes  of  priestcraft : 
he  who  gives  water  or  shoes  to  a  Brahman  will  find  water 
to  refresh  him,  and  shoes  to  wear,  on  the  journey  to  the 
next  world,  while  the  gift  of  a  present  house  will  secure  him 
a  future  palace.^  In  interesting  correspondence  with  this, 
is  a  transition  from  pagan  to  Christian  folklore  in  our  own 
land.  The  Lyke-Wake  Dirge,  the  not  yet  forgotten  funeral 
chant  of  the  North  Country,  tells,  like  some  savage  or 
barbaric  legend,  of  the  passage  over  the  Bridge  of  Death 
and  the  dreadful  journey  to  the  other  world.  But  though 
the  ghostly  traveller's  feet  are  still  shod  with  the  old  Norse- 
man's hell-shoon,  he  gains  them  no  longer  by  funeral 
ofiering,  but  by  his  own  charity  in  life  : — 

'  This  a  nighte,  this  a  nighte 
Every  night  and  alle; 
Fire  and  fleet  and  candle-light, 
And  Christe  receive  thy  saule. 

When  thou  from  hence  away  are  paste 

Every  night  and  alle  ; 
To  Whinny-moor  thou  comes  at  laste. 

And  Christe  receive  thy  saule. 

If  ever  thou  gave  either  hosen  or  shoon, 

Every  night  and  alle  ; 
Sit  thee  down  and  put  them  on, 

And  Christe  receive  thy  saule. 

But  if  hosen  nor  shoon  thou  never  gave  neean, 

Every  night  and  alle  ; 
The  Whinnes  shall  prick  thee  to  the  bare  beean, 

And  Christe  receive  thy  saule. 

'  Maitland,  '  Church  in  the  Catacombs,'  p.  137  ;  Forbes  Leslie,  vol.  ii. 
p.  502  ;  Melners,  vol.  ii.  p.  750  ;  Brand,  '  Pop.  Ant.'  vol.  ii.  p.  307. 
"  Ward,  '  Hindoos,'  vol.  ii.  p.  284. 


/  / 


•  •  y 


496  ANIMISM. 

From  Whinny-inooro  when  thou  may  pansc, 

Every  night  and  alio ; 
To  Drig  o'  Drtnitl  thou  eomcH  at  lasto, 

And  ChriHte  receive  thy  saulo. 

From  Brig  o'  Dread  when  thou  are  paato, 

Every  night  and  alio  ; 
To  Purgatory  Fire  thou  cornea  at  latste, 

And  Chriate  receive  thy  saule. 

If  ever  thou  gave  either  milke  or  drink, 

Every  night  and  ulle; 
The  fire  shall  never  nnike  thee  shrinke, 

And  Christe  receive  thy  aaule. 

But  if  milk  nor  drink  thou  never  gave  neean, 

Every  night  and  alio ; 
The  fire  shall  burn  theo  to  the  bare  boean 

And  Christe  receive  thy  saule.'' 

What  reader,  unacquainted  with  the  old  doctrine  of  offer- 
ings for  the  dead,  could  realize  the  meaning  of  its  remnants 
thus  lingering  in  peasants'   minds  ?   The    survivals  froia 
ancient  funeral  ceremony  may  hero  again  Kti  ve  as  warnings- 
against  attempting  to   explain  relics  of  intellectual  an-**" 
tiquity  by  viewing  them  from  the  changed  level  of  modern  ■- 
opinion..^ 

Having  thus  sui-veycd  at  largo  the  theory  of  spirits  ot 
souls  of  objects,  it  remains  to  point  out  what,  to  general 
students,  may  seem  the  most  important  consideration  be-- 
longing  to  it,  namely,  its  close  relation  to  one  of  the  most 


'  From  ilie  collated  and  annotated  text  in  J.  C.  Atkinson,  '  Glossary  of 
Cleveland  Dialect."  p.  .')!i.5  (a  =  ono,  neean  =  none,  b(>ean  =bono).  Other 
versions  in  Scott,  'Minstrelsy  of  the  Scottish  Border,'  vol.  ii.  p.  3C7  ;  Kelly, 
'Indo-European  Folklore.'  p.  ll.'i  ;  Brand,  'Pop.  Ant.'  vol.  ii.  p.  275. 
Two  verses  liave  perhaps  ))een  lost  between  the  fifth  and  sixth.  J.  C.  A. 
reads  'mcato  '  in  vv.  7  and  8  ;  the  usual  reading  '  railko '  is  retained  here. 
The  sense  of  these  two  verses  may  be  that  the  liquor  sacrificed  in  life  will 
quench  the  fire  :  an  idea  parallel  to  that  known  to  folk-lore,  that  he  who 
gave  bread  in  his  lifetime  will  find  it  after  death  ready  for  him  to  cast 
into  the  hellhound's  jaws  (Mannhardt,  'GiStterwelt  der  Deutschon  und 
Nordischon  VOlker,'  p.  319\  a  sop  to  Cerberus. 


pa»8fi, 

tasto, 
,e, 

nk, 

re  neean, 
boean 


doctrine  of  offcr- 
T  of  its  remnants 

survivals  from 
,1  ve  as  warning*- 
intellectual  an-" 

level  of  modern  - 

ry  of  spirits  or- 
hat,  to  general 
insideration  be- 
ne of  the  most 


linson,  '  Glossary  of 

Ian  =  bono).  Other 
)1.  ii.  p.  367  ;  Kelly, 

^t.'  vol.  ii.   p.  275. 

id  sixth.  J.  C.  A. 
I '  is  retained  here, 
jrifleod  in  life  will 
-lore,  that  ho  who 
[ly  for  him  to  cast 
n-  Duutschon  und 


ANIMISM. 


497 


influential    ioctrines  of  civilized  philosophy.    The  SAvaga 
thinker,  though  occupying  himself  to  much  with  the  pheno- 
mena of  life,  sleep,  diseMte,  and  death,  aeems  to  have  takeiv 
for  granted,  as  a  maiter  of  course,  the  ordinary  operation»-»f 
his  own  raiii(^    It  hardly  oocurred  to  him  to  think  about  the 
maohiuery  of  thinking.     Metaphysioa  is  a  study  which  firsi- 
assumes  clear  shape  at  a  comparatively  high  level  of  intelleo- - 
tual  oulturer  The  metaphysical  philosophy  of  thought  taught  ^ 
in  our  modem  European  lecture-rooms  is  historically  traced 
back  to  the  speculative  psychology  of  classic  Groecc    Now 
one  doctrine  which  there  comes  into  view  is  especially  asso- 
ciated with  the  name  of  Democritus,  the  philosopher  of 
Abdera,  in  the  fifth  century  n.  c.     When  Democritus  pro- 
pounded the  gi'eat  problem  of  metaphysics,  '  How  do  we 
perceive  external  things?' — thus  making,  as  Lewes  says, 
an  era  in  the  history  of  philosophy, — he   put  forth,  in  - 
answer  to  the  question,  a  theory  of  thought.    He  explained 
the  fact  of  perception  by  declaring  that  things  are  always 
throwing  off  images  {dhwKa)  of  themselves,  which  images, 
assimilating  to  themselves  the  surrounding  air,  enter  a  re- 
cipient soul,  and  are  thus  perceived.   Now,  supposing  Demo- 
critus to  have  been  really  the  originator  of  this  famed  theory 
of  ideas,  how  far  is  he  to   be  considered   its    inventor? 
Writers  on  the  history  of  philosophy  are  accustomed  to 
treat  the  doctrine  as  actually  made  by  the  philosophical 
school  which  taught  it.     Yet  the  evidence  here  brought  for- 
ward shows  it  to  be  really  the  savage  doctrine  of  object- 
souls,  turned  to  a  new  purpose  as  a  method  of  explaining  . 
the  phenomena  of  thought.     Nor  is  the  correspondence  a 
mere  coincidence,  for  at  this  point  of  junction  between 
classic  religion  and  classic  philosophy  the  traces  of  histo- 
rical continuity  may  be  still  discerned.    To  say  that  De-. 
mocritus  was  an  ancient  Greek  is  to  say  that  from  his 
childhood  he  had  looked  on  at  the  funeral  ceremonies  of  his 
country,  beholding  the  funeral  sacrifices  of  garments  and 
jewels  and  money  and  food  and   drink,  rites  which  his 
mother  and  his  nurse  could  tell  him  were  performed   in 


/ 


70L.  J, 


Kk 


498 


ANIMISM. 


ll 

It  '  ■< 


i    m 


P3 


a 


•I 


/ 


order  that  the  phantasmal  images  of  these  objects  might 
pass  into  the  possession  of  forms  shadowy  like  themselves, 
the  souls  of  dead  men.    Thus  Democritus,  seeking  a  solu- 
tion of  his  great  problem  cf  the  nature  of  thought,  found 
it  by  simply  decanting  into  his  metaphysics  a  surviving 
doctrine  of  primitive  savage  animismf    This  thought  df 
the  phantoms  or  souls  of  things,  if  simply  modified  to  form 
a  philosophical  theory  of  perception,  would  then  and  there  - 
become  his  doctrine  of  Ideas.  "Nor  does  even  this  fully 
represent  the  closeness  of  union  which  connects  the  savage 
doctrine  of  flitting  object-souls  with  the  Epicurean  philo-  >> 
Bophy.    Lucretius  actually  makes  the  theory  of  film-like  " 
images  of  things  (simulacra,  membranee)  account  both  for  ^ 
the  apparitions  which  come  to  men  in  dreams,  and  the^ 
images  which  impress  their  minds  in  thinking.     So  un-* 
broken  is  the  continuity  of  philosophic  speculation  from  • 
savage  to  cultured  thought.     Such  are  the  debts  which  civi> 
lized  philosophy  owes  to  primitive  animism. 

The  doctrine  of  ideas,  thus  developed  in  the  classic  world, 
has,  indeed,  by  no  means  held  its  course  thenceforth  un- 
changed through  metaphysics,  but  has  undergone  transition 
somewhat  like  that  of  the  doctrine  of  the  soul  itself.  Ideas, 
fined  down  to  the  abstract  forms  or  species  of  material  ob- 
jects, and  applied  to  other  than  visible  qualities,  have  at 
last  come  merely  to  denote  subjects  of  thought.  Yet  to 
this  day  the  old  theory  has  not  utterly  died  out,  and  the 
retention  of  the  significant  term  'idea'  (tSea,  visible 
form)  is  accompanied  by  a  similar  retention  of  original 
meaning.  It  is  still  one  of  the  tasks  of  the  metaphysician 
to  display  and  refute  the  old  notion  of  ideas  as  being  real 
images,  and  to  replace  it  by  more  abstract  conceptions.  It 
is  a  striking  instance  that  Dugald  Stewart  can  cite  from  the 
works  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton  the  following  distinct  recognition 
of  '  sensible  species : '  '  Is  not  the  sensorium  of  animals, 
the  place  where  the  sentient  substance  is  present ;  and  to 
which  the  sensible  species  of  things  are  brought,  through 
the  nerves  and  brain,  that  there  they  may  be  perceived  by  the 


ANIMISM. 


499 


}  objects  might 
[ike  themselves, 
seeking  a  solu- 
thought,  found 
ics  a  surviving 
his  thought  (tf 
modified  to  form 
then  and  there  * 
even  this  fuUy 
tecta  the  savage 
Epicurean  philo-  •» 
ory  of  film-like  ■• 
ccount  both  for  "^ 
[reams,  and  the" 
inking.     So  un« 
[peculation  from* 
iebts  which  civi* 
a. 

he  classic  world, 
thenceforth  un- 
rgone  transition 
lul  itself.    Ideas, 
of  material  ob- 
talities,  have  at 
ought.     Yet  to 
ed  out,  and  the 
(Ibia,    visible 
ion  of  original 
metaphysician 
,s  as  being  real 
lonceptions.    It 
,n  cite  from  the 
net  rcoiognition 
m  of  animals, 
resent ;  and  to 
ought,  through 
erceivedbythe 


mind  present  in  that  place  ? '  Again,  Dr.  Reid  states  the 
original  theory  of  ideas,  while  declaring  that  he  conceives 
it '  to  have  no  solid  foundation,  though  it  has  been  adopted 

very  generally  by  philosophers This  notion  of  our 

perceiving  external  objects,  not  immediately,  but  in  certain 
images  or  species  of  them  conveyed  by  the  senses,  seems 
to  be  the  most  ancient  philosophical  hypothesis  we  have  on 
the  subject  of  perception,  and  to  have,  with  small  varia- 
tions, retained  its  authority  to  this  day.'  Granted  that 
Dr.  Reid  exaggerated  the  extent  to  which  metaphysicians 
have  kept  up  the  notion  of  ideas  as  real  images  of  things, 
few  will  deny  that  it  does  linger  much  in  modern  minds, 
and  that  people  who  talk  of  ideas  do  often,  in  some  hazy 
metaphorical  way,  think  of  sensible  images.^  One  of  the 
shrewdest  things  ever  said  about  either  ideas  or  ghosts  was 
Bishop  Berkeley's  retort  upon  Halley,  who  bantered  him 
about  his  idealism.  The  bishop  claimed  the  mathematician 
as  an  idealist  also,  his  '  ultimate  ratios '  being  ghosts  of 
departed  quantities,  appearing  when  the  terms  that  pro- 
duced them  vanished. 

It  remains  to  sum  up  in  few  words  the  doctrine  of  souls, 
in  the  various  phases  it  has  assumed  from  first  to  last  among 
mankind.  In  the  att^^npt  *n  traoft  its  main  course  through 
the  successive  grades  of  man's  intellectual  history,  the  evi- 
dence  seems  to  accord  best  with  a  theory  of  its  development, 
somewhat  to  the  following  efiect.  Ati  the  lo'wuut  h»vol»>of 
cul^«»«  4>f  •  whi«h<  w«  have  eleai  kaowkdg&t  the  notion  ofc§. 
ghoat-soul  animating  man  while  in  the  body,  and  appeariny 
ITwjr^tn   and  viamn  n^f  /^f  fl^Q  ^"dy,  i«  fnimd  dfiftply_  it»> 

gnone^  There  is  no  reason  to  think  that  this  belief  was 
learnt  by  savage  tribes  from  contact  with  higher  races,  nor- 
that  it  is  a  relic  of  highei^  culture  from  which  the  savage- 
tribes  have  degenerated;  for  what  is  here  treated  as  the 

'  Lewes,  *  Biographical  History  of  Philosophy,'  Democritus  (and  see  his 
remarks  on  Reid);  Lucrotius,  lib.  iv. ;  'Early  Hist,  of  Mankind,'  p.  8; 
Stewart,  '  Philosophy  of  Eluman  Mind,'  vol.  i.  chap.  i.  sec.  2 ;  Reid,  'Essays,' 
ii.  chaps,  iv.  xiv=  ;  see  Thos.  Erovvne,  '  Philosophy  of  the  Mind,'  lect.  27. 

Kk  2 


\rvf 


500 


ANIMISM. 


11    I',' 
If    \ 


.ft 


Kit' 


■.•'i> 


i 


primitive  animiHtic  doctrine  is  thoroughly  at  home  amon^ 
savages,  who  appear  to  hold  it  on  the  very  evidenoe  of  thei!t 
senBes,  Interpreted  on  the  biological  ^inoiple  whieh  seems 
to  them  most  reasonaUe.  We  may  now  and  then  hear  the 
savage  doctrines  and  practices  concerning  souls  claimed  as 
relics  of  a  high  religious  culture  pervading  the  primaeval 
race  of  man.  They  are  said  to  be  traces  of  remote^ ancestral 
religion,  kept  up  in  scanty  and  perverted  memory  by  tribes 
degraded  from  a  nobler  state.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  such 
an  explanation  of  some  few  facts,  sundered  from  their  con- 
nexion with  the  general  array,  may  seem  plausible  to  certain 
minds.  But  a  large  view  of  the  subject  can  hardly  leave 
such  argument  in  possession.  The  animism  of  savage* 
stands  for  and  by  itself;  it  explains  its  own  origin.  |Th"9 
animism  of  civilized  men^  .while  more  appropriate  to  ad* 
vanced  knowledge,  is  in  great^^aure  oniy^xplicable _e§  *► 
developed  productgrtte^lder^midmder  system.  It  is  the 
doctrines  and  rites  of  the  lower  races  which  are,  according 
to  their  philosophy,  results  of  point-blank  natural  evidence 
and  acts  of  straightforward  practical  purpose.  It  is  the 
doctrines  and  rites  of  the  higher  races  which  show  survival 
of  the  old  in  the  midst  of  the  new,  modification  of  the  old 
to  bring  it  into  conformity  with  the  new,  abandonment  of 
Athe  old  because  it  is  no  longer  compatible  with  the  new. 
fXet  us  Hee  at  a  glance  in  what  general  relation  the  doctrine 
\  of  souls  among  savage  tribes  stands  to  the  doctrine  of  sonls 
;  among  barbaric  and  cultured  natiofls.  (Among  races  within 
TKe  limits  of  savagery,  the  general  doctrme  of  souls  is.found 
worked  out  with  remarkable  breadthjindjeonsigteneyj  The 
souls  of  animals  are  recognized  by  a  natural  extension  from 
the  theory  of  human  souls ;  the  souls  of  trees  and  plants 
follow  in  some  vague  partial  way  ;  and  the  souls  of  inani- 
mate objects  expand  the  general  category  to  its  extremest 
boundary ."^Vrhenceforth,  as  we  explore  human  thought 
onwardfrom  savage  into  barbarian  and  civilized  life,  we 
find  a  state^of~tEeory  more  ccmTormed  to  posTtTve  science, 
but  in  itself  less  complete  and  consistenf.    ^ar  on  into 


A\- 


\\i 


^^ 


t  home  among" 
'idenoe  of  thefif 
le  which  seems 
3  then  hear  the 
ouls  claimed  as 
f  the  primaeval 
emotejincestral 
Bmory  by  tribes 
o  see  that  such 
from  their  con- 
usible  to  certain 
san  hardly  leave 
iem  of  savage* 
m  origin.  |Th9 
propriftte  to  a^ 
^explicable  ,^» 
jrstom.    It  is  the 
}h  are,  according 
latural  evidence 
[pose.    It  is  the 
ih  show  survival 
;ation  of  the  old 
,bandonmeut  of 
with  the  new. 
ion  the  doctrine 
Loctrine  of  souls 
ms  races  within 
|of  souls  isiound 
^nsistenoir]    The 
extension  from 
irees  and  plants 
souls  of  inani- 
;o  its  extremest 
luman  thought 
vilized  life,  we 
lOSitTve  science, 
'  "Far  on  into 


OV 


J 


ANIMISM. 


-  i)     501 


z^ 


\ 


.-i 


h  C 


civilization,  men  still  act  as  though  in  some  half- meant  way 
they  believed  in  souls  or  ghosts  of  objects,  while  neverthe- 
less their  knowledge  of  physical  science  is  beyond  so  crude 
a  philosophy.     As  to  the  doctrine  of  souls  of  plants,  frag- 
mentary evidence  of  the  history  of  its  breaking  down  in 
Asia  has  reached  us.     In  our  own  day  and  country,  the 
notion  of  souls  of  beasts  is  to  be  seen  dying  out.     Animism, 
indeed,  seems  to  be  drawing  in  its  outposts,  and  concen- 
trating itself  on  its  first  and  main  positionj^e  doctrine  of 
the-humaa..afli^^l  This  doctrine   has  undergone  extreme 
^lodificationjn  the  course  of  culture.     It  has  outlived  the 
almost  total  loss  of  one  great  ai'gument  attached  to  it, — the 
objective  reality  of  apparitional  souls  or  ghosts  seen  in 
dreams  and  visions.     The  soul  has  given  up  its  ethereal 
substance,  and  become  an  immaterial  entity,  J_thejba4ow 
of  a  shajle.'  \Its  theory,  is  becoming  separated  from  theSj-f^-^'-f/'^''* 
investigations  ^.biology- and  mental  science,  which  now        '  ' '"' 
jliscuss  the  phenomena  of  life  and  thouglijL  th&  senses-,and     >.>-<'>'^ 
the  intellect,  the  emotions  and  the  will,  on  a  ground-work  of 
•pure  experience.     There  has  arisen  an  intellectual  product 
whose   very  existence    is  of  the   deepest  significance,  a 
'  psychology '  which  has  no  longer  anything  to  do  with 
^soul?     The  soul's   place  in  modern  thought  is   in  the 
"giefapEysics  of  religiojQ  and  its  especial  office  there  is  that 
oi  furnishing  an  intellectual  side  to  the  religious  doctrine  of 
the  future  life.     Such  are  the  alterations  which  have  dif- 
ferenced the  fundamental  animistic  belief  in  its  .course 
through  successive  periods  of  the  world's  culture.  /Yet  it  is      -y\ 
evident  that,  notwithstanding  all  this  profound  cnflUge,  the 
conception  of  the  human  soul  is,  as  to  its  most  essential 
nature,    continuous  from  the  philosophy    jf  the  savage 
thi^nker  to  that  of  the  modern  professor  ol  theologyi    Its 
definition  has  remained  from  the  first  that  of  an  animating, 
separable,  surviving  entity,  the  vehicle  of  individual  personal 
existence.     The  theory  of  the  soul  is  one  principal  part  of 
a  system  of  religious  philosophy,  which  unites,  in  an  un- 
broken line  of  mental  connexion,  the  savage  fetish-wor- 


d^ 


219078 


JMAY  ^i»  isieS 


V- 


502 


ANIMISM. 


shipper  and  the  civilized  Christian.  The  divisions  which 
have  separated  the  great  religions  of  the  world  into 
intolerant  and  hostile  sects  are  for  the  most  part  superficial 
in  comparison  with  the  deepest  of  all  religious  schisms, 
that  which  divides  Animism  from  Materialism. 


END   OP   VOL.    I. 


MAY  ;^b  1^69 


i  divisions  which 
the  world  into 
it  part  superficial 
eligious  schisms, 
lism. 


